


Love You Like a Killer (I Want to Make Your Heart Stop)

by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Carol Preston's A+ Parenting, Castle AU, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Found Family, Heavy Angst, Honestly Not Sure if Smut Will Be in Here, Human Disaster Garcia Flynn, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, Really Putting Our Babies Through the Wringer, Slow Burn, This Got Way Darker Than I Planned, Violence, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, bunker family, discussions of trauma, we shall see, whoopsies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2020-10-25 21:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 206,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/pseuds/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels
Summary: In the aftermath of a devastating loss, Wyatt Logan and Garcia Flynn became the best homicide detectives in the city. But now their partnership is going to be shaken up by the arrival of a very enthusiastic wild card in the form of bestselling author Lucy Preston.As cases unfold, partnerships are formed, and murders are solved, one ultimate specter haunts them all:Who killed Lorena and Iris Flynn?





	1. Chapter 1

Lucy Preston was an award-winning historical mystery novelist.

Lucy Preston had won a goddamn Edgar Award and an Agatha Award in the same year. And been shortlisted for a Pulitzer although she wasn’t technically supposed to know that. She’d won a James Fenimore Cooper, twice.

Lucy Preston had been on the _New York Times _bestseller list for every single book she’d published.

Lucy Preston was currently staring at the blank Word document in front of her on her laptop and feeling horribly inadequate.

She got up, leaving that stupid blinking curser to keep mocking her, and went into the kitchen of the loft. Amy looked up from where she was idly flipping through a magazine. “I thought you had a shift?”

“Nah, not until late. Graveyard again.”

Amy had helped nurse Dad, and then Mom, through cancer. It had given her a passion for it, and at age twenty-seven she was finally finding her purpose: being a nurse. Not that Lucy thought any less of her sister for taking a while to figure out what made her passionate. They’d been lucky—Lucy’s books had ensured that Amy didn’t have to work a day in her life if she didn’t want to.

Lucy rifled around the cupboards, looking for something to eat. Something to inspire her. Something to distract her. Something…

“This is the tenth time you’ve gotten up in the last hour,” Amy noted. “How’s the new book coming?”

“Great!” Lucy said.

Amy raised an eyebrow.

“Horribly.” Lucy grabbed some crackers and sat down across from her sister at the kitchen island. “I knew that it was time for Kate Drummond, lady reporter, to ride off into the sunset but I figured that once I finished that off the inspiration for a new series would just… just _come_. And it hasn’t.”

“Well, what inspired you for the first series?”

“You know what inspired me.” Or rather, whom. Carine, Lucy’s college girlfriend, the one she’d broken up with because she didn’t know how to come out to Mom. Kate Drummond was a reporter, just like Carine. She had gorgeous blonde hair and snapping eyes and a fast way of talking, just like Carine.

She hadn’t been able to keep Carine, not really. But through Kate, she could. Lucy could use Kate to write her girlfriend the love letter she couldn’t in real life. It had been her way of… trying to make up for all that had gone wrong between them and a way to keep Carine alive in her life, long after Carine went back to Canada.

Of course, that had just been the start. Kate Drummond wasn’t one hundred percent Carine. And as the years had passed, she’d become more and more of her own character, separate from the woman Lucy had loved and lost.

Being a reporter in the 1920s and 30s had helped with that.

Now, the inspiration for Kate Drummond had at last run dry. But Lucy wasn’t about to go out and just find some other person to fuck and write a character based on them, that wasn’t how this _worked_.

Amy shrugged. Amy was the only one who knew about Carine. “You’ll think of something.”

“I’d better.”

“It’s not like we can’t live off what the Drummond series made.”

“We can, but it’s not about what we can live off of.” Mom and Dad had always been very active in charity work and Lucy herself worked the circuit, but she wasn’t about to devote her life to retirement. No. She wanted to write, she needed to write. It wasn’t about the money, it was about her craft. Writing was what made her happy.

The phone rang. Lucy answered it, already expecting it to be yet another person wanting to interview her to talk about the ‘end of the Drummond era’.

Instead a deep, accented voice said, “Lucy Preston?”

“That’s me.”

“My name is Detective Garcia Flynn, I’m with the NYPD. We’d like you to come down to answer a few questions for us regarding a murder.”

Oh, now _this _was interesting.

* * *

The burglaries were like nothing Flynn had ever seen. Not in his ten years as detective. Wyatt hadn’t seen anything like it either, although given that Wyatt had only been with the precinct four years, that was slightly less impressive.

“Oh my God,” Jess blurted out when she saw it.

Rufus didn’t blurt out anything. He just turned right back around and walked out. A moment later Flynn could hear retching.

Why Rufus Carlin had become a homicide detective with his queasy stomach, Flynn didn’t know. Well, actually, he did know. They all had their ghosts.

“How’d they get her in there?” Wyatt asked, examining the body that had been horribly, bloodily, forced into the wall safe.

“Broke pretty much every bone in her body,” Jiya said, writing things down on her clipboard.

“Motherfucker,” Jess breathed. “Do you know what this is?”

“The third in a string of horrific burglaries where the victims are mutilated and murdered?” Wyatt countered.

Jess rolled her eyes. “Maybe if you picked up a damn book that wasn’t written by a hack, you’d know.”

“James Patterson is not a hack…”

“Guys, I’m not your divorce therapist,” Flynn reminded them, crouching down to examine the carpet. “That means I am not obligated to listen to your bickering.”

Jess and Wyatt had tried to get a counselor to help, back when they’d still been trying to save their marriage. Given that they had now been divorced for three and a half years, Flynn could attest that it hadn’t helped.

At least they were friends now? And coworkers who could actually work together despite the bickering.

“Seriously?” Jess looked at Flynn. “Don’t you know? Tell me you know.”

Flynn did, in fact, know what Jess was referencing. But he wasn’t about to admit it.

“_The Last Empress_,” Jiya said. “Book three of the Kate Drummond series.”

Wyatt shot a glance over at Flynn, but wisely didn’t say anything.

“Drummond’s a reporter who goes to cover the whole Anastasia thing,” Jess said excitedly. “And there’s this whole string of burglary-murders that ends up tying into the main plot with Anastasia. Apparently they’re looking for a Faberge egg that if the imposter has it she can use to prove she’s really the lost princess, except it turns out someone _else _really is the lost princess, and…”

“Are you suggesting I’ll have to deal with someone saying they’re heir to Russia on this case?” Flynn asked, deadpan.

Wyatt stared determinedly out the window, saying nothing, probably because he knew that Flynn’s well-worn copy of _The Last Empress _was currently sitting on the coffee table in their apartment next to an empty bottle of beer and a half-filled bowl of popcorn.

“I’m suggesting that we have a copycat killer,” Jess said. “So far, all the bodies have matched up.”

“She’s right,” Jiya added. “The first body was garroted from behind and had a finger chopped off. Second body was beaten to death with a heavy metal object like a pipe. Third body is now shoved into the safe, every bone broken along the way to make it happen.”

Wyatt finally turned away from the window to look over at Flynn. “You know…” he said slowly, and Flynn never liked it when Wyatt said things slowly. It meant Wyatt had been _thinking_. It meant Wyatt had a _plan_.

That was never a good thing.

“I think, if this is a copycat, that it’s likely the killer will strike again. There were five murders in the book, right?”

“How’d you know that?” Jess asked, immediately suspicious.

Because Flynn had told Wyatt just about everything that happened in the Drummond series and read his favorite passages aloud, that was why.

Wyatt’s face went pink. “I just googled it,” he said, holding up his phone.

Jesus Christ, Flynn could’ve kissed the guy.

“Anyway,” Wyatt went on, “if the killer will strike again, and they’re a copycat, they’re most likely wanting to get the attention of the original author. So, let’s talk to her. Lucy Preston, right?”

Never mind. Flynn was going to murder Wyatt at the first opportunity.

Jiya and Jess both perked up. “That sounds like an amazing idea,” Jess purred.

Great. Just great.

* * *

Wyatt watched from behind the two-way glass as Lucy Preston sat in the interrogation room. She was… not at all what he’d been expecting.

To be honest, he’d been expecting someone a lot… older. Y’know. Some boring older person who lived at home and was probably also a stuffy professor at some esteemed university and whatever.

According to google, Lucy Preston had originally intended to be a history professor, but had switched tracks for some nebulous reason and decided to try her hand at being an author instead. She was also, to quote one of her interviews, _a nerd who skipped prom to attend a debate seminar and doesn’t regret it._

Flynn had read that bit to Wyatt out loud with a fond look in his eyes.

Oh yeah. That was what Wyatt was looking forward to. Watching Flynn have to meet his literary idol and somehow not fucking choke. There were few things Wyatt liked more than ruffling Flynn’s feathers. Flynn was hot as fuck when he was all riled up.

Not that Wyatt would ever, on pain of death, tell Flynn that.

But for a self-professed nerd and a major history geek who’d made her living writing novels about a reporter diving into pretty much every major event in the first half of the 20th century, Lucy Preston looked…

Glamorous. That was the only word for it. Absolutely stunning.

She perked up, smiling as Flynn entered. “Hello, tall dark and handsome. Do they make all detectives like you? I thought that was just in the movies.”

Flynn looked like he’d just about swallowed his tongue. Wyatt had to shove his hand against his mouth to keep from laughing too loudly.

“I wish we’d brought popcorn,” Rufus whispered next to him.

“Hell yeah.”

“Miss Preston.”

“Lucy, please.”

“Miss Preston, I’d like you to take a look at these pictures.”

“Ooh, power move,” Rufus said.

Yeah, like Wyatt had said, Flynn was hot as fuck when he was riled.

Lucy professed a lack of knowledge about a copycat killer. “Murder isn’t even really a main focus in my stories,” she explained, propping her feet up onto the interrogation table.

Wyatt couldn’t see Flynn’s facial expression since Flynn was facing away from the two-way glass, but he sure as hell could picture it.

Lucy just smirked, keeping her feet up. “I write about political intrigue, the machinations of various world powers, I write about scandals and upstairs-downstairs tension. Spy stuff. Events leaving World War I and leading into World War II. If a reader of mine really wanted to impress me there are a lot of other ways to do it besides picking the one book that has murder in it.”

“And yet, Miss Preston, that’s exactly what this person did.”

“Then why haven’t I gotten any notice about it until now? Someone imitating my murders and it takes you the third try to call me?” Lucy clucked her tongue.

Rufus was shaking with laughter.

“Look.” Flynn sounded terse. “We just want you to look at these three victims and see if maybe there’s a connection between them relating to your book that we’ve missed. There are five murders in your novel. That means two more victims. Two more innocent lives. If we can find the murderer in time, I’d appreciate it.”

He stood up. “I’ll send my partner back in to check on you. You can look at these for a bit.”

“Aww, handsome, you’re not leaving me already are you? Not an afterglow kind of guy?”

Wyatt had to brace his hand on the wall to try and stay upright, wiping tears from his eyes. Holy fuck, Flynn was going to blow a goddamn gasket.

“Lucy…”

Wyatt’s head shot up. Flynn’s voice was…

“What is he doing with his voice?” Rufus asked.

Flynn leaned in, just a little, towards Lucy. “Trust me, if we were conducting that sort of business? We’re still a long way from the afterglow. We’re still in the foreplay stage.”

Then he turned and walked out. “And get your feet off my damn table.”

“You called me Lucy!” Lucy called after him triumphantly as Flynn slammed the door shut.

He entered Wyatt and Rufus’s observation room a second later. Wyatt’s mouth was completely dry. He had never heard Flynn use that tone of voice before and holy shit he was gonna be taking cold showers for a week.

“That is the most insufferable, conceited, arrogant woman I have ever seen in my life!” Flynn hissed.

Personally, Wyatt didn’t think Lucy was bad as all that. They’d definitely had worse people to question. But this was striking a nerve with Flynn. Seeing as she was his favorite author and all.

“Excuse me!” Lucy was banging on the two-way window. “Hey! Flynn!”

“At last, she remembers my name isn’t ‘handsome’,” Flynn growled.

He returned to the room, and Lucy tapped the pictures that showed the faces of the victims—pre horrible death, of course. “I know these people.”

“Personally?”

“Not enough to be friends, but they all attend the same charity events. My parents were big on giving back, I go to pretty much everything. I recognize them.”

Flynn stared down at the pictures. “How are they connected to you, then?”

Lucy shook her head. “That’s the thing, I don’t think it’s about me. If it was, the killer would’ve contacted me ages ago, y’know, like the guy who shot Reagan for Jodie Foster.”

“Pity the guy missed,” Rufus mumbled.

Wyatt agreed.

“Then what is your theory?”

Lucy grinned. “I’m glad you asked. See, killers in real life aren’t very original, are they? Killers in fiction are always much more ingenious. I see people in real life and it’s like, where’s the pizzazz, you know? I mean look at Ted Bundy and all those other assholes, the only reason they got away with it is they were white men. They weren’t actually all that clever about it.”

“Miss Preston, I assume there’s a point to all this.”

“Lucy. Anyway, what if a killer wants to try and hide his motives? He wants to sensationalize the deaths somehow. He picks an author who’s written a string of murders—and by association, because our brains are like that, he picks an author who goes to the same charity events as his victims.” Lucy tapped the pictures. “See what event they went to that’s the same, find out who the staff is, your killer’s in there.”

“Why the staff?”

“There’s no other connection between the victims. That’s why you called me in, isn’t it? Nothing else is the same—they never spoke to each other, never talked to each other, this is the only thing that connects them.”

“And why murder them, then, if it’s not to get your attention?”

“The killer stole jewelry, didn’t he?”

“Yes, rather high end jewelry.”

“Not just any kind of high end jewelry, jewelry you only take out when you really want to show off—like an a charity event.” Lucy showed him a picture of one of the stolen necklaces. “This gorgeous thing is known as the Nebula Opal. You don’t even want to know what it went for on auction, it’ll make your hair stand on end.”

“Try me.”

“2.5 million.”

Wyatt choked.

“These kills are unnecessary though, if you’re after the jewelry.”

“To you, maybe.” Lucy’s voice was soft. “To another kind of person… maybe that’s part of the fun.”

She had a point.

“Thank you for your insight, Lucy.” Flynn gathered up the files. “Now, if you’ll follow me, I can…”

“Um, don’t you still need me?”

Flynn paused. “What for?”

Lucy smiled. That smile did things to Wyatt’s stomach. “To help you get into the charity event, of course. Why barge in with badges when you can get in undercover? More flies with honey, detective.”

Flynn glared.

* * *

All right, so maybe she didn’t have to work with Det. Flynn and Det. Logan (“Wyatt, please, ma’am.” “I’ll call you Wyatt if you never call me ma’am again, we’re the same age.” “Deal.”) to help them get their killer.

But this was the most fun she’d had in ages. And lucky for her, Captain Christopher seemed inclined to agree it was a good thing.

“This suspect is dangerous,” she said when she called Lucy, Flynn, and Wyatt into her office. “I think it’s a wise choice to have one of you go in with Miss Preston, undercover, and try to suss out our killer that way. Catching the person unaware could be our best bet. I’m not losing a detective to someone who beats people to death and shoves them into a wall safe.”

Lucy beamed at her. Already she could feel the gears of inspiration turning when she talked to Flynn and Wyatt. Their easy banter, the irritation between them that masked a deep and obvious connection and sense of trust, Flynn’s acerbic nature and sass, Wyatt’s almost puppyish manner…

She’d found her new muses, she just knew it. The idea that was slowly taking root in her mind would be her most ambitious project yet, far more so than her Drummond books, and would carry a bit of science fiction element with it, but if she could pull it off… and with such men inspiring her, how could she not?

“Thank you, Captain Christopher,” Lucy said earnestly. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

God, she felt _alive _again. It was an amazing feeling.

Flynn and Wyatt, at least, seemed less pleased. Especially Flynn, since he was supposed to be Lucy’s date while Wyatt was a part of event security. “This will be fun!” she told them. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be able to do this every day. Chase down killers, it’s got to be exciting.”

Det. Logan and Det. Carlin watched the proceedings from their desks, exchanging looks. They were partners, and Lucy was definitely including them as side characters in her new series. For one thing, Jessica Logan was Wyatt’s ex-wife (apparently her maiden name was heinous enough to keep her married one even post-divorce) and for another, Rufus Carlin was the single funniest person Lucy had ever met.

“Exciting?” Flynn looked at Lucy like she had told him her favorite pastime was drowning children in the old quarry. “It’s not exciting, Lucy. It’s not—this isn’t some game you can play, all right? This is my job.”

“I’m not suggesting it’s not serious. But it’s also a bit exhilarating, isn’t it? If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t do it.”

Flynn looked a big wrongfooted, then glared at her. “Just be there at eight,” he told her, turning and walking towards the elevator.

Wyatt glanced between the two of them, then followed.

Lucy frowned, watching Flynn and Wyatt walk away. “Are they always like that?”

“Yes.”

Lucy jumped and turned around to see Jess looking at her. “Wow, holy shit, you really sneak up on a girl, don’t you?”

Jess sighed. “Look, I get you have this…” She waved a hand at Lucy. “…persona, thing, that you have going on. But could you tone it down around them?”

“It’s not my fault they’re such sticks in the mud.”

Jess frowned. “Did Flynn and Wyatt tell you why they’re homicide detectives? Did Wyatt tell you why he and I are divorced?”

“Um, no? Wait, those two things are related?”

Jess grabbed her by the elbow and led her along, muttering under her breath until she got Lucy onto the quiet stairwell. “Look. Wyatt and I grew up in this small Podunk town in Texas. His mom split when he was about three, his dad was an asshole. We went into the police force together because it was cheap and offered stability and it made Wyatt feel safe.

“Then five years ago, we get a call right out of the blue. From this woman named Lorena Flynn. She wants to talk to Wyatt.” Jess folded her arms, and for the first time since Lucy had known her, Jess looked… vulnerable. Raw. “She says—she says she’s Wyatt’s older sister.”

“Oh my God,” Lucy breathed.

Jess nodded. “Lorena was a civil rights lawyer and she had some friends in the system, I guess, and Flynn’s a cop, so they were able to track down her mom. I guess she was an all-around addict. Abandoned Lorena when Lorena was five, two years later ended up in Texas, gave birth to Wyatt, started on meth again, left him. Died of an overdose in Reno six months later.”

Lucy had never heard such venom in someone’s voice before. Jess sounded like she’d kill Wyatt and Lorena’s mother herself if the woman was placed in front of her.

“Sorry.” Jess gave a pained smile. “I know we need to be supportive and understanding. That it’s a mental illness. But I just—I just know what Wyatt went through with his dad and what Lorena went through in foster care and I… I can’t forgive her for doing that to them.”

Jess wasn’t a bad person, but Lucy thought she saw in her, in that moment, dark shades of gray. Sharp edges. Jess was a hidden blade, sharp and swift and right in the gut, killing you before you saw it coming.

As a writer, Jess fascinated Lucy. As a person, it made her glad that she was on Jess’s good side. For now, anyway.

“Anyway Lorena says in the process of tracking down her mom, she tracked down Wyatt, and she wants to meet up. Get to know her baby brother. Wyatt’s fucking ecstatic of course. His only good family was his dad’s dad, and he died when Wyatt was twelve, and me. And we weren’t doing so hot. We talked for months with Lorena and finally we were like hey, fuck it, let’s move to NYC. Maybe it’ll save our marriage.

“So we’re all set, and we’re excited, and it’s going to be great, and—and we get to the city and go to meet up with them at the apartment and it’s just Flynn and he’s—fuck, Lucy. You’ve got no idea what he looked like. I’d never spoken to him before, neither had Wyatt, but you could just tell this guy was fucking broken.

“You see, that morning, Lorena had been out on a walk with their five-year-old daughter, Iris. She’s the cute kid you see in the picture on Flynn’s desk. I know you saw it, you were writing about it in your journal. They were out and… and a mugging went wrong.”

Lucy inhaled sharply. “No.”

Jess nodded. “They were stabbed to death. Both of them.”

Lucy felt sick, her throat closing up. “I… how…”

“The killer was never found.” Jess put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow. “Wyatt was fucking devastated, of course. Not as much as Flynn. Our marriage fell apart pretty quickly after that so Wyatt moved in to help Flynn cope. He made detective, got into homicide. So did I. We all kind of… silently agreed to stick together. This precinct is our home, it’s our family. I know that most cops are pieces of shit with authority issues but not here. We made this a damn good place, we made this a safe haven.

“So you want to know why they’re such sticks in the mud? That’s why. It’s because Flynn lost his wife and child, Wyatt his sister and his niece before he even got to really know them. It’s because they know we’re surrounded by authoritarian pigs and every day, they have to go out there and convince people to trust them anyway and trust they’re not like most cops. It’s because every time they see a body they see Lorena and God help us all if it’s a kid. They want to bring families the justice they never got.”

Jess’s face and voice finally softened. “That’s why. So if you could… just tone it down, a little, that would be good.”

_I don’t know how, _Lucy wanted to blurt out. _My persona is all I am, this performance is all I am, it’s a shield and I don’t know who I am once I take it off. I’ve forgotten._

Instead she said, “I’ll do my best. Thank you, Jess, for telling me.”

Jess nodded. “Just don’t make me regret it.

* * *

Flynn held up another option and Wyatt made a face. “Dude, I know you make fun of my fashion taste, but this is pathetic.”

“I’ve got to wear something.” Since apparently he was now going to one of the charity events of the season. Why was this his life?

“Can’t you rent a tux?”

“Last minute? Do you have any clue how much it’ll cost?”

“Make Denise foot the bill.”

The front doorbell rang. Wyatt rolled his eyes and went to answer it while Flynn tried to find something that wouldn’t make him look like a total fool. If only he had the budget to buy the wardrobe he wanted. He had good fashion sense, dammit. He was just working off a police officer’s salary, not a millionaire’s, and that was who he’d be surrounded by tonight.

Wyatt walked back in.

“Who was it?” Flynn asked, turning away from his horribly disappointing closet.

“It was a delivery.” Wyatt set a large white box on the bed. “Guess who from.”

Oh for crying out loud. On the top of the box was a card, one that Wyatt had clearly already opened. Inside it said, _lucky for you it’s black tie, so I can’t force you into branching out into color._

“I knew she was a princess,” Flynn groused, “but this is the absolute…” He opened the box and froze.

Wyatt peered around Flynn and gave a low whistle. “Whoa. That’s a suit.”

It was, indeed, a suit. A far nicer suit than anything Flynn or Wyatt owned, complete with a burgundy silk lining and a pair of cufflinks.

“How the hell did she know my measurements,” Flynn growled.

“Uh…” Wyatt suddenly looked rather pink in the face.

“Did you tell her!?”

“No!” Wyatt was a horrible liar. “Maybe! A little! What? You need a good suit!”

“I’m going to remember this, Logan.” Flynn pointed at him. “Just you wait. Sleep with one eye open.”

Wyatt, the little shit, just grinned at him. “Have fun schmoozing.”

* * *

Flynn did not like this.

First of all, he didn’t like… this. Rich people giving up a small, tiny portion of their wealth and then patting themselves on the back and deciding they’d made a difference and done all they could. They wanted to really make a difference? Let themselves be taxed fairly, stop spending millions on jewels and art that they’d then lock up in their house like hoarders, actually move to a modest place instead of taking up an entire floor of a building and hosting opulent parties every night. They had the power in their wealth to solve the world’s problems and they thought going out to these see-and-be-seen meet and greets where they wrote the occasional check was enough?

Yeah, right. As a fucking decent human being and as someone who’d come from nothing, he could tell those people exactly where to shove that idea.

Second of all, this was—this was not how he’d wanted to meet his favorite author.

He’d noticed the similarities to Lucy’s book the moment he’d seen the first murder, but he hadn’t said anything. Not even to Wyatt. He’d played dumb this entire time, because he was a believer in the phrase ‘never meet your heroes’. Now, he was being proven right.

Lucy Preston was clearly highly intelligent. She was gorgeous and sophisticated. She was full of light, bringing color to everything.

She was also incapable of taking anything seriously and flirted shamelessly.

It was an odd mixture of disappointment and—and being allured. Yes, all right, in spite of himself, she drew him in. He wanted desperately to know how the woman who had written _São Paulo Nights_, the woman who he had so admired, could also be this dazzling debutante, and could also be so very frustrating. He wanted to understand how he could be so drawn to her and yet also annoyed as all get out by her.

He had to somehow find a way to spend the evening with her without losing his mind or his sanity or his temper.

Good fucking luck.

Especially once he saw Lucy.

She strode in wearing this gorgeous burgundy dress—one that matched the lining on his suit, he realized—that looked like she’d done a twist on the 1890s Gibson girl style, with her dark hair piled up in an artfully messy sort of way, the kind that looked like it would sexily fall apart any second but was actually held up by dozens of pins. To Flynn’s surprise, she wasn’t wearing any jewelry. She had been wearing a gold locket when she’d come into the station earlier, but now her neck, and her ears, were bare.

She was definitely the only one. Everyone else around them was wearing something that cost an obscene amount. The men were sporting cufflinks and watches that cost more than Flynn and Wyatt’s apartment was worth.

Flynn offered his arm to her, since Maria Thompkins Flynn hadn’t raised a barbarian (although she had raised a fool) and Lucy’s arm slinked through his. Her smile was…

It was doing things to him.

“You clean up nice, detective,” she said, apparently having decided that calling him _handsome _was, indeed, a step too far.

Flynn wasn’t sure to be thankful or not. He hated it when people called attention to his looks or tried to flirt with him (that is, when he realized they were flirting with him) but at the same time he’d… he’d felt flattered, all right? Sue him.

“I’m going to go make nice with the people organizing this thing,” Lucy whispered. “You can scope out the staff.”

They parted ways, Flynn heading for the bar to grab drinks—not that he or Lucy would actually be imbibing.

“So, you’re Lucy Preston’s date.”

Flynn turned to see an older gentleman standing there, slightly overweight, with white hair and the kind of casually conceited air that Flynn automatically hated.

“Live and in person,” he replied. “And you are?”

“She usually just brings her sister,” the man noted. “You must be someone special if she’s brought you along.”

“And here I thought I was just hired to be arm candy.” Flynn shrugged. “Guess that’s what I get for not reading the contract fully.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. Flynn gave the man his best, most charming, _I’m a boy scout I swear _smile. “If you’re interested, though, you’ll need to set up a date through my company, I don’t freelance. We charge hourly.”

The man outright glared, the drinks arrived from the bartender, and Flynn used them to toast at him. “Enjoy the party!”

Okay, staff, where was the waitstaff…

The drinks were taken out of his hand and placed to the side and then he was being yanked out onto the dance floor.

“Lucy what the hell—”

“Where else can I talk to you without someone overhearing?” Lucy hissed.

She had a point. Flynn tried to keep his heart rate normal as he slid his hand around to the small of her back, smoothly taking the lead. His mother had taught him to waltz in the kitchen as a child, with him standing on her feet to start when he was little enough. He could still hear her voice in his head every time. _One, two, three, one, two, three…_

“What is it?” he asked.

“The woman who runs this charity, Rebecca, she’s got a new boyfriend. He’s come to all the events lately. Guess when they started dating.”

“Right before the murders started.”

“A week beforehand.”

“Charming. Where is he?”

“Six o’clock.”

Flynn turned, dipping her, and saw the man in question. The guy didn’t look too physically intimidating, kind of like a weasel, actually, but there was a glint in his eyes that made Flynn feel cold. He’d found, in his experience, that it wasn’t about how strong the murderer was. It was about the ice in their hearts.

He brought Lucy up out of the dip, and tried hard not to look at her flushed face and glittering eyes. Why did her eyes have to be so dark? And why did she have to part her lips to inhale sharply like that?

He hadn’t so much as looked at another woman since Lorena had died. And now this…

“You saw him?” Lucy whispered. Her hands were on Flynn’s arms to start but now moved to his shoulders, leading them into a close hold, the most intimate pose. Perhaps if they’d been in bare feet it would’ve been more awkward with the nearly a foot of height difference, but Lucy had picked some daring heels to hide underneath that dress, and something about the way she angled herself, tilted up her chin, didn’t make it feel awkward at all.

“Yes. We should go and talk to him.” He didn’t move.

Neither did Lucy.

“You’re a very good dancer,” she ventured. “And the event will go on for another few hours. We could… enjoy ourselves a little more.” She paused. “You look like someone who doesn’t get to enjoy himself very much, Flynn.”

Flynn knew he should stop looking at her. He knew he had a job to do. But for a second, just one second, it was so hard to remember _why_.

“That’s not how this job works, Lucy,” he said, and even he couldn’t have said why his voice came out so quiet. “That’s not how I work.”

“And what would be harm in it? Just another dance? Eat some stupid overpriced canapes? Make fun of the peacocks strutting around here thinking they’re so important?” Lucy paused again like she was gearing up her courage to say something. “I… I know about Lorena and Iris.”

He froze.

“Don’t. Don’t talk to me about them.” He stared down at her, aware that his grip was tightening a bit. Lucy didn’t look afraid, or startled. She just stared right back at him. “If you’re going to ask questions, or look into it, then you can walk right out that door, Lucy.”

“I—I only meant—”

Flynn stepped back so quickly that he practically shoved Lucy away in the process. “I have to do my job.”

He pulled out his badge as he walked over to the suspect. He made sure not to glance back to see Lucy’s face. “Hello, I’m Detective Flynn with the NYPD, if you have a moment…”

* * *

Wyatt hated it when criminals tried to run. He hated it so much.

“This is why you need to join me for a run in the mornings,” Flynn told him, dragging their perp into the cruiser and still, annoyingly, looking like a million bucks.

Wyatt continued to breathe deeply, bent over, but he did manage a middle finger up at Flynn.

Lucy hurried over, grinning at Wyatt. “That was amazing!” she crowed. “Oh my God, that is definitely going into the book.”

“What book?” Wyatt asked, struggling not to stare. Lucy in anything was amazing but Lucy in burgundy was—yeah. Yeah, she was. Anyway.

“The book I’m writing about you and Flynn, of course.” Lucy looked like a cat with a bowl of cream. “I’ve decided. I’m over my writer’s block!”

“You had writer’s block?”

“Yup. But then I got to accompany you two on this case and I’m just bursting with ideas. You ready for this? A hardboiled private detective from the late 1940s teams up with a time-traveling bandit from the 21st century as they—”

“What’s this?” Flynn asked as he walked up.

“She’s writing a book about us,” Wyatt said carefully.

Flynn stared at Lucy for a long moment. “Why?” he asked, his voice flat.

Wyatt knew that Flynn’s voice got like that when he was trying to hold in a strong emotion.

“Because you two are inspiring,” Lucy replied. “Obviously.”

She reached up, straightening Flynn’s tie. “There you go.” Her voice was a little softer now.

Flynn swallowed hard, Wyatt could see it bobbing, and shit. The two of them were looking at each other like nobody else in the world existed. Wyatt felt almost like he was intruding by being there.

Great. Just great.

Flynn took a hasty step back, and Lucy smiled. It looked awkward on her, too big for the moment. “You guys are lifesavers, seriously. I have such a great idea for a new book series thanks to you two. And it’ll be great to work with you!”

“…work with us?” Wyatt echoed.

“Oh, yes. I’ll have to keep working with you, to see how the whole police procedure works, to get a feel for the whole thing, get more inspiration for cases.” Lucy looked ready to jump up and down with excitement. “It’ll be amazing.”

“I doubt that’ll be a good idea…” Flynn started.

“The mayor will love it too, I’m sure!” Lucy added.

Flynn looked like he was wondering if there were cameras recording his absolute frustration.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” Lucy said. “Bright and early. I’ll have to think of a way to thank you two for this, honestly, you have no idea how much you’ve saved me.” She kissed Wyatt’s cheek, then looked at Flynn. “If nothing else, I have to thank you for being my lovely date tonight. You had them all green with envy for me.”

She blew them both a kiss, then tripped off into the night.

“So,” Wyatt said. “You ever gonna tell her that you once stood in line for three hours so she’d sign your book?”

Flynn glared at him. “If you ever breathe a _word_ to her, I will poison your stupid Pop Tarts.”

Wyatt grinned. At least this hadn’t changed with Lucy’s presence. This banter with Flynn.

He hoped… he hoped nothing else would change.

* * *

Lucy listened attentively as the coroner explained. Daniels was a good friend who’d assisted her on accuracy in her other novels. She trusted her judgment.

“The original medical examiner concluded that the stab wounds were random,” Daniels explained, pointing at the various pictures. “But look at this one, here. That’s a sharp downward thrust, straight to the kidneys.”

The photos were hard to look at. Lucy had seen murdered bodies before, for research, but this—this was personal. This was the woman that Flynn loved, the woman he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with. This was the sister that Wyatt had never gotten to know.

And more than Lorena’s photos…

Lucy felt bile rising in her throat every time she so much as glanced towards Iris’s pictures. Five years old. Five. Years. Old.

Who did that? Who did that do a child?

“The wound size indicated that the knife was…” Daniels paused. She took a deep breath. “Twisted. The victim…”

“Lorena.” Lucy was surprised at how sharp her voice sounded. “Her name was Lorena.”

“Lorena would have gone into immediate shock,” Daniels said, transitioning smoothly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that these stab wounds… they would have been delivered after she was immobilized and on the ground—they’re just for show. This one to the kidneys, that’s the one that killed her.”

“Am… am I crazy or is this sounding less like a random killing and more like a murder? Like a hit?”

Daniels winced. “There’s… there’s more.”

Oh, God. Lucy nodded, swallowing.

“On a hunch I checked the city medical examiner files to see if this was an isolated incident—and I found three other stabbings around that same time, that the M.E. working the case dismissed as… random.”

“Were they related?”

Daniels looked pained. “Lucy, are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.” She had started on this path. She was going to finish it. She was going to get answers for Wyatt and Flynn.

* * *

Wyatt opened the door after a few knocks. “Lucy?”

She looked—she looked wrecked. “Hey,” she said weakly.

Wyatt paused. “You okay?”

Then he looked down and saw a file in her hands.

“I need—I need you to sit down,” Lucy whispered. “May—may I come in?”

“Uh, sure, sure.” He opened the door further and ushered Lucy inside.

Flynn wandered out of his bedroom, pausing when he saw Lucy there. “Lucy, what brings you here at this time of night?”

“I need to talk to you.” Lucy was gripping the file painfully tight. Like it was a lifeline. “I know that—I know that I’ve gone against your wishes and I know that it was wrong, but—I wanted to thank you, I wanted to do something to help you two, you—you made me feel alive, for the first time in—in a year, and—” She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “Do you know how very awful it is to not want to exist? To not actively want to kill yourself, just, to not want to exist anymore. It sounds peaceful, doesn’t it? Until you feel it and it’s—it’s so empty and numb and you can’t feel anything…”

Wyatt took her by the shoulders and guided her down to the couch as Flynn shot him an alarmed look and went to the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water for her.

“I just—I saw that you two were in limbo the way that I was, after Mom died, and I wanted to do for you what you did for me because this case was the most fun I’ve had in a year, maybe in my entire life. And so I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I went behind your backs and I shouldn’t have. But.”

Lucy handed Wyatt the file, and he saw the names on it.

_Fuck._

“The medical examiner was wrong. The detective who handled the case was wrong.”

Wyatt opened the file, his hands shaking.

Flynn walked back over, handing Lucy the glass of water. Wyatt tilted the file so Flynn couldn’t see the pictures. “Garcia. Sit.”

Flynn looked at him oddly. Wyatt almost never called him by his first name. But he obliged him and did as he was told.

Lucy took a sip of water, then a deep breath, then another sip of water. “Around the same time as… as these murders, three others were killed the same way. A lawyer for a nonprofit, a documents clerk, and a former law student of hers.”

“Hers?” Flynn sounded like he was half-catching on, an awake man chasing the fringes of a dream.

Wyatt swallowed. “Flynn. It’s.” He cleared his throat and held out the file so that Flynn could see. “It’s Lorena and Iris.”

Flynn went pale, his eyes too bright. Glittering. He looked at Lucy. “Get out.”

Lucy gripped the water glass so hard Wyatt thought she might shatter it. “I told you—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but Flynn I—I found something new and I had to tell you—”

“The one thing I asked you not to look into.” Flynn stood up. “The one thing, and you broke my trust!”

“Flynn—”

“I trusted you! Lucy, I trusted you with my family!”

“Okay.” Wyatt jumped up in between them, putting his hands on Flynn’s chest. “Flynn, hey, it’s not okay, it’s not, but this—”

“I won’t,” Flynn croaked. “I won’t be dragged into this again.”

He grabbed onto Wyatt’s wrist, squeezing tightly, his thumb rubbing the inside, along Wyatt’s rapid pulse, and for a wild second Wyatt thought that Flynn was going to kiss Wyatt’s knuckles or something—although that was just his own uselessly hopeful daydream. He was used to those about Flynn by now.

And then Flynn was pulling away, retreating into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Wyatt scrubbed at his face. “Come on. Out. You heard him.”

He walked over to the front door, yanking it open again. Lucy stood up, blanching. “Wyatt—Wyatt please—”

“You have any idea how long it took me to drag Flynn out of the pit he was in?”

It wasn’t what he meant to say, but it was what flew out of his mouth.

Lucy shook her head. “No.” Her voice was as soft, as timid, as Wyatt had ever heard it.

Wyatt gestured for Lucy to exit. This time she did as told, but she waited as Wyatt stepped out into the hall with her and closed the door behind him. He turned to look at her properly. “Three years he was chasing those ghosts. Three years. And fuck, it cut me up, losing her and Iris, but I never met them. I was only just beginning. They were Flynn’s whole world. It took me three years to drag him out. I was cleaning up after him, taking care of him, dragging him back from the edge. Losing those two—it might’ve been the last damn straw between me and Jess but it saved me as a person. I was a piece of shit until Flynn, and suddenly there was this person who was more messed up than I was, and I had to be the mature one, and it fucking sobered me up, let me tell you.

“And I like you, Lucy. I like you a lot. You’re a great person, and I think you’ve got a good heart. But Flynn can’t, he _can’t _go down this road again, not if there’s no bottom of the tunnel. I can’t let you do that to him. I don’t know if I can save him a second time and it’s not gonna be from my lack of trying.”

Lucy stared at him. “I get—I get that you’re afraid. I understand—you’re scared to go back down that rabbit hole with him, that he’ll lose himself again and that you’ll lose yourself this time too. But it’s different this time. You have a lead. And I’ll be there. You won’t be alone.”

“And what if I don’t want the truth?” Wyatt blurted out. “What if… Lucy what if—so we find the killer. Great. And then what. He or she or whoever cuts a deal, and walks out? If I have to see that… I will fucking throw up. And Flynn won’t stand for that. If he has to see that—he’ll kill them. He will go after them and he will kill them and he will take the law into his own hands and I won’t let him go to prison for that, I won’t. I will kill them myself if that’s what it takes.”

Lucy stared at him, her mouth slightly open, a new light in her eyes, and oh. Oh fuck.

She knew.

Wyatt stumbled back like he’d been struck. “Lucy…”

“Oh.” There it was, that sympathetic light, and Wyatt hated that more than anything.

“Don’t.” He took another step back. “Lucy. Don’t.”

If she said it out loud, he would crumble. He’d turn to dust.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. He didn’t know if it was for betraying them or for the truth she’d just uncovered or both.

Wyatt swallowed. “Flynn’s the one you want to say sorry to.”

“I don’t know if he’d let me.”

Jesus Christ, why was he even doing this. “Give it a few days, okay? Then come—come to the precinct and he’ll—he’ll calm down. He’ll forgive you. He has a soft spot for you, even if he’s an asshole who isn’t acting like it.”

Lucy blinked at him a few times like a startled deer. “You—you sure?”

“Yeah I’m sure, Lucy, I’ve spent four years living with the guy, I think I know him well enough by now.” _I’ve spent four years in love with him._

Lucy nodded. “All—all right then.” She paused. “Wyatt if this was a hit, if this was something bigger—then whatever it is, it could still be going on. And other people could be losing their spouses, and their children. Lorena—from what you and Flynn have told me of her, Lorena wouldn’t want that.”

“No,” Wyatt agreed. “No, she wouldn’t.” Lorena would have liked Lucy. She would have liked her a lot. “Why do you think I’m giving you a second chance?”

Lucy smiled, and yet it was a smile that looked like crying.

* * *

“I’m sorry.”

Flynn jumped, nearly spilling his coffee everywhere.

Lucy was standing in the doorway to the break room. She was dressed more simply than he’d ever seen her. Black ballet flats instead of heels. High-waisted jeans. A blue plaid flannel shirt. Her hair haphazardly pulled back.

_Beautiful_, he thought, and then hated himself for it.

Lucy took a deep breath. “I went behind your back, and I violated your trust, and there’s no excuse for it. I’m sorry. And if you never want to see me again that’s fine, but I just wanted you to know that, before we parted ways. I wanted you to know how sorry I am. Because you deserve a proper apology from me.”

Flynn’s gaze flickered over to where Wyatt sat at his desk, doing a very poor job of pretending to read a file. The phone rang and Wyatt answered it absently, still staring at just one spot on the page. Jesus Christ, it was a good thing Wyatt had never tried to become a spy.

He looked back at Lucy. She really did look forlorn. And he had missed her the past few days—had missed her exuberance, her unique way of looking at things, her endless stream of history facts.

“We—” _We have a new case. It’s one you’d like. You can consult if you want._

“Flynn.” Wyatt barreled into the doorway. “Jiya just called. Our new case—we—she—we need to get down there, now.”

* * *

“Meet the late Jack Coonan,” Jiya said, gesturing at the body lying on the slab in the morgue.

Lucy liked Jiya. She was whip smart, took no shit, funny in a dark cynical kind of way, and also had a relentless crush on Rufus that Rufus seemed oblivious to.

“Why is that name familiar?” Wyatt asked.

“Because he’s been in and out of prison for every crime out there, but he’s most well-known lately as a mob enforcer.”

“So, what, rival gang busted him up?” Flynn asked. “Why did you call us down here so urgently?”

Jiya looked at Wyatt. Lucy also looked at Wyatt.

Wyatt swallowed. “Tell—tell them how he died, Jiya.”

Jiya pulled back the curtain. Lucy had never seen a corpse on a slab in person before. She had seen dead people in person before. She’d been there when Dad had died in the hospital. And she’d run into Mom’s room, following Amy’s screams, when Amy had woken up to find Mom had died. But not… like this.

“There are a bunch of stab wounds,” Jiya said, “but they’re all post-mortem. Unnecessary, even. For show.” She pointed at a knife wound at the man’s lower side. “This is the one that killed him. The blade was shoved in right to his kidney, and then twisted. He’d go into…”

“…shock immediately,” Flynn finished.

Lucy’s mouth was completely dry, but her eyes were wet.

“Yes.” Jiya looked at him. “How’d you know?”

Lucy looked at Flynn. So did Wyatt. They were both waiting for him.

“Did we get in touch with next of kin?” Flynn asked. His voice was rough.

Jiya opened her mouth, then closed it, nodding. Wyatt cleared his throat. “Um, yeah, yeah—Jack’s brother, uh, Dick, Dick Coonan, he should be coming in shortly.”

Lucy could practically hear the gears turning in Flynn’s head, whether he liked it or not. What did a mob enforcer have to do with Lorena and Iris’s deaths? And why were three other people also killed around the same time in the same way?

“Guys?” Rufus poked his head in. “I got the call history off the SIM card on Coonan’s phone, you won’t believe who he was talking to. The goddamn FBI.”

“Hi, Rufus!” Jiya said, waving.

Rufus flushed. “Hey, Jiya, how—” He tried to step forward, but pulled the door into himself, smacking his forehead. “I mean, um, ow, sorry, I’m just gonna… I’ll see you around!”

“Jiya, please, for the love of all that’s holy,” Flynn said, “just put him out of his misery and ask him out.”

“And stop watching him stew in it until he works up the courage?” Jiya grinned. “Nah, I’m good.”

“You’re an evil woman,” Lucy noted. “I like it.”

* * *

Agent Mulroney of the FBI didn’t have much for them. Wyatt made the call, because Flynn was busy falling to pieces in Interview Room #2 and pretending he was just on an extended bathroom break. Yeah, right.

“Yeah, Coonan reached out to us. He was pretty persistent about it, too,” Mulroney said. “But he wanted stuff that I couldn’t guarantee him without any information, and he was squirrely about telling me who he wanted to turn in.”

“Guy like that gets all antsy, usually means he’s turning on his boss and wants in on Witsec.”

“Trust me, the mob is not shy about delivering the death penalty,” Mulroney replied. “But I’ll be honest with you, Det. Logan, I don’t think it was his boss. Coonan was old school, real loyal, and we had rumors of a turf war going on between his gang and another—someone was bringing drugs into the mix and the Westies didn’t like it.”

The Westies were the Irish mafia, the people that Coonan ran with. They owned Hell’s Kitchen.

“You think Coonan was hoping to bring in the drug runners?”

“Honestly, Logan, I think he was hoping to bring in someone who scared him. In my experience, that means someone close to home. Call it a hunch, but I’d look into his close friends, and I don’t mean his Westie boss.”

Huh. “Thanks for the help, agent.”

Lucy was looking through pictures on Flynn’s desk. “According to my friend, a forensic pathologist, the guy uses a special forces blade, like the kind used in the first Gulf War. He’s honed the blade so find that it’s brittle, pieces will get stuck on bone inside the body.” She paused. “I’m sorry. It’s… it’s all fun until…”

“Until it’s personal, yeah, I know.” Wyatt stood up. “Coonan’s brother in yet?”

“No, stuck in traffic.”

“Do me a favor.” He still wasn’t sure in some ways about Lucy, but she was in this now. “Greet him when he gets here, make him feel at home. I need to go talk to Flynn. Check in on him.”

Lucy nodded, her dark eyes watching him as Wyatt walked into the interview room.

Flynn was pacing. The table and chair were out of place, like Flynn had viciously shoved them.

“Hey.” Wyatt walked over, reaching out, leaving his hand hovering just over Flynn’s shoulder.

Flynn stepped to the side so that his shoulder made contact with Wyatt’s hand. Wyatt squeezed gently.

“Why now?” he asked. “Why now—four years later—”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t the first M.E. look into the connection—”

“I don’t know.”

“God _dammit_.” Flynn tore himself away, pacing again. “I can’t—Wyatt, I can’t lose myself like that again, you know what—”

“I do. And hey.” Wyatt grabbed him, grabbed on and held tightly. “Garcia.”

Fuck, Flynn’s eyes were dark, like bottomless pits.

“Maybe this is—maybe this is the way we’ll make things right. Maybe this is our chance to bring justice. It’s late, but better late then never.” Wyatt shook him slightly. “We’ll break this fucker, Garcia. We’ll find him and we’ll fucking break him.”

* * *

Dick Coonan was heavier set than his brother. Same jawline, though. Lucy wanted to take notes in her journal. “Mr. Coonan, please, sit. The detectives will be in here shortly to take you to the interview room. Would you like some coffee in the meantime?”

“Ah, don’t mind if I do.” The man looked around nervously. “I, uh, look, um, ma’am…”

“Lucy, call me Lucy, please.” She sat back down across from him.

Coonan nodded. “Lucy. Did my… did my brother suffer?”

Lucy swallowed. _Will my mother suffer? How bad is the cancer? Will she die painfully?_ “Yes,” she admitted.

Coonan seemed to grow a little more of a backbone from that. “Thank you for your honesty.”

Lucy nodded. “I’ll get you that coffee.”

* * *

Flynn exited the room with Wyatt, his hand on Wyatt’s elbow. Steadying himself.

He could do this. They could do this. They would find the person who had murdered his family, murdered them in cold blood, and they would put that bastard away for the rest of their miserable life—

“Flynn. Logan.”

It was Denise.

She opened the door to her office, gesturing. “I heard there were developments in your case.”

Dammit.

* * *

“I heard that—that my brother was possibly murdered by some kind of serial killer?” Coonan asked, accepting the coffee Lucy handed to him.

“A hitman,” Lucy corrected. “Serial killers do what they do out of a compulsion, a need, hitmen do it because they’re good at it and it’s what they’re hired for.”

“Ah.” Coonan nodded. “A little girl, though, who does that?”

Lucy tried not to freeze. “A very sick person,” she replied, proud that her voice didn’t shake.

She hadn’t said anything about Iris to Coonan. She was certain that nobody else had, either. Only Jiya, Captain Christopher, Flynn, and Wyatt knew about that. And Captain Christopher’d had to know. All personal connections to a case had to be reported to the superior officer to prevent a conflict of interest.

As if the police were so well known for doing a good job handling conflicts of interest.

There was only one way that Coonan could know.

“You know, maybe you could help me with something,” Lucy said. “I don’t suppose… well, apparently your brother wanted to go to the feds with something, but he was rather hesitant about it. The agent he’d been talking to said he suspected that it was because of a personal connection. Jack was reluctant to turn in someone he cared about. Was there a girlfriend, boyfriend, close person at all that Jack might have had? Someone we could look into?”

“Honestly, I think he might’ve had a new girlfriend?” Coonan replied. “My brother and I led very different lives, Lucy, you have to understand. He ran with the mob, I run a charity for refugees in Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan, yes. Where you served in the special forces?”

“Yup. First Gulf war.”

“Fascinating. What was that like?”

Flynn and Wyatt exited Denise’s office. Flynn was glaring at the floor like it was taking everything in him not to march back in there and yell at Denise until the heavens broke open and poured fire on them both.

Lucy waved at them, forcing a smile onto her face. “Here are the detectives now.”

Coonan stood up.

Wyatt walked over towards the break room by the elevator, but Flynn headed over to join them.

“I’m sorry about your loss,” Flynn said.

One of the uniformed police officers walked over. “Flynn, we need you to sign…”

“Coonan here was just telling me about his time overseas,” Lucy said. She prayed, she prayed like hell, that Flynn understood what she meant. “I was just about to regale him about the time I accidentally killed the iris plant I was given four years ago, aren’t you glad we don’t have to bore him with that story now.”

Flynn paused. He looked up at her. Then looked at Coonan.

Coonan lunged forward, punching the cop in the throat and yanking out his gun. Lucy froze—the wrong reaction. Coonan grabbed her, twisting her arm behind her back and pressing the gun to her lower side. The muzzle was unforgiving, hard, cold even through her blouse.

Nobody else as around. Everyone was on lunch, or working their beat. Captain Christopher was in her office. There was no help.

“Here’s how this is going to go,” Coonan informed them. “The little lady and I are going to walk over to the elevator, nice and easy. You make a sound, you attempt a signal, you so much as clear your throats…”

He tightened his hold on Lucy’s arm, wrenching it back even more. A small noise of pain escaped her in spite of her best intentions. Flynn looked absolutely murderous.

“…and I will fire a round right through her liver. And she will die slowly, and in considerable pain. Given that you already had to lose one person you care about, detective, I’m sure I don’t need to make you lose someone else in such an unpleasant way, do I?” He started walking back with her towards the elevator.

“You knew, you knew the moment you got the call that you killed my family,” Flynn spat.

“Don’t get all tied up in knots about it. They were just another job.”

“They were my family. Who hired you to kill them.”

“Forget about it.” Lucy couldn’t see it, but she could hear Coonan’s smile. “You’ll never touch them. They’ll bury you.”

They were still inching towards the elevator and Lucy could feel panic rising inside of her. She hated it, hated it so much, but she was terrified.

“Tell. Me.”

Wyatt walked out of the break room and realized what was happening.

“Don’t!” Flynn yelled, but it was too late.

Wyatt got in front of the elevator.

“Get out of the way,” Coonan growled. His gun dug into Lucy’s side.

Wyatt just barely, almost imperceptibly, shook his head. “No.”

It was a standoff. Neither Flynn nor Wyatt could do anything, not with the gun still on her.

So Lucy took herself out of the picture.

She stomped on Coonan’s foot and threw her head back, then dropped to the ground. She saw Coonan stumble back with an angry yell, saw his gun fly up—right towards Wyatt—

_Bang. Bang._

Guns didn’t sound at all like they did in the movies, she thought nonsensically.

Red blossomed on Coonan’s chest as he fell, two flowers, like those big tropical ones from commercials for Hawaii, and that was when she realized she might be in shock. Just a little bit.

Coonan collapsed onto the ground and Lucy squeaked, shuffling back, looking up towards Wyatt.

But Wyatt’s hands were empty.

She looked over to her other side and saw Flynn, gun still raised, finger on the trigger.

Coonan died without a sound.

* * *

Flynn sat on the couch—the same couch where Coonan had sat just yesterday.

Coonan. The man who had killed his wife and daughter.

He’d known, the moment Lucy had said that nonsensical thing about killing an iris plant. Four years ago. The look on her face… it was like he’d been able to read her mind. He’d just known what she was hinting at.

Wyatt felt like shit. “If I hadn’t gotten in front of the elevator…”

Flynn told him over and over it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t sure if Wyatt believed him.

He had wanted Lorena and Iris’s killer to face justice. But not like this. Not without knowing who had ordered the hit on Lorena and those other people, and why.

“I failed you.”

Flynn looked up to see Lucy standing there.

“I thought… I was helping you. And instead I was just a liability.”

Flynn stared at her. “Do you… do you know what helped me, after they died?”

Lucy shook her head.

Flynn gave a sardonic chuckle, the sound scraped out of his throat. He tasted battery acid. “I was a wreck. I wanted to… I considered joining them. Joining my family. I was at rock bottom. Wyatt was out of his mind. One night I… I made this joke, only it wasn’t a joke, not really, about running away, going to somewhere like São Paulo and finding a hole to die in. The next day… the next day Wyatt came into the apartment and shoved this book in my hand. _São Paulo Nights _by Lucy Preston. First in the Kate Drummond series.”

Lucy was still as a statue, her lips parted, her eyes wide.

Flynn looked down at his hands. “I read that book front to back and back to front. I bought all of the other books. I once stood in line for three hours when you did a signing so that you could autograph them.”

“I don’t remember you.” Lucy sounded equal parts confused and heartbroken.

Flynn shrugged. “I was one fan out of many. Why would you?”

“Because I should have. Because you’re you.” Lucy sat down next to him. “I don’t want to write about you and Wyatt because this job is glamorous or exciting. I want to write about you two because—because of the way you got about bringing justice to those three dead people, in the burglaries. And how you refused to even consider the idea that you might not save the other two. You’re—you’re special, Flynn. I knew it the moment you walked into the interview room.

“I’ve been… I’ve been really lost, the last few years. And being here is like breathing again. When I didn’t even know I was drowning. The idea that I was once so… so lost that I couldn’t see there was something about you when I met you the first time, that scares me. I don’t ever want to be numb like that again.” She paused. “And now I’ve taken something about you and made it about me. I’m sorry.”

“You’re… you’re fine.” He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to say you don’t have to apologize. Your books saved my life. They gave me an escape. I think the first time I laughed again was reading about that chapter in book five, with Robert Johnson, when Drummond meets that one producer…”

“Oh my God.” Lucy burst out into giggles. “I based that producer on a close friend of mine, he pretended to be furious for weeks when he found out.”

“Pretended?”

“He’s a major Johnson fan. And he can’t really stay mad at me.”

“But that was the first time I laughed.”

Lucy stopped giggling, but her smile stayed. “You mean that?”

“I mean that. Your books were what helped me… feel, again, even if it was just for fictional people or people who were long-dead. So consider this… consider this just me paying you back. And for what it’s worth? If it weren’t for you, I never would’ve known there was a connection to Lorena and Iris’s killer. And now—now I know, and I know he was working for someone, and I can find who those bastards are.”

“Are you sure?” Lucy whispered. “Wyatt said—he said you really lost yourself, when you tried to solve it last time.”

“I’m scared,” Flynn admitted. “I’m scared that by the time we’re done, I’ll be the kind of person who can’t be a father again, can’t be a husband again, that I’ll be—I’ll be something else. Something darker. But I also know that I have to see this through.”

“Well, if nothing else, you have Wyatt.” Lucy shrugged. “He cares about you. A lot.”

“Yeah. He’s my best friend. Besides Rufus.” If he sometimes thought about Wyatt in ways you didn’t think about your best friend, well, that was Flynn’s business and nobody’s else. Falling for you best friend was one thing, falling for a straight guy was another, and falling for the half-brother of your dead wife was just an extra layer of fucked-up icing on a shitty cake.

“Well, when the book comes out, I’ll… I’ll give you a signed copy. And I’ll remember you, this time.” Lucy stood up.

Flynn stared at her. “What do you mean?”

Lucy played with the gold locket she was wearing. She always wore that locket, Flynn realized, even if it was often hidden under her shirt. “I just—well, you guys don’t want me around, so—”

“Maybe not at first, but.” Flynn stood up. “You need to do more research for your book, don’t you?”

Lucy stared up at him. “You—you’re serious?”

“I am.” He managed a small smile. “I think you and I are going to be quite the team someday.”

Lucy smiled, and it was like sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cases in this chapter are based on the Castle episodes Home is Where the Heart Stops (1x07), Death in the Family (1x13), and Sucker Punch (2x13).


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy squinted up at the ceiling of her room. Did she smell… bacon?

She rolled over, glancing at the clock. Oh, God, why was it so early? Why was the sun up and peeking through the curtains? Why did she exist?

“I see someone went on a writing binge last night,” Amy noted from the kitchen island as Lucy slumped her way down the stairs, the tie of her bathrobe trailing behind her.

“Ah, the clickety-clack of the computer,” Mason said. He was flipping an omelet in a frying pan. “Such a welcome sound, and here I was fearing we’d never hear it again.”

“I’m not writing you a musical, Connor,” Lucy said, plopping into a seat.

Connor Mason was a producer for theatre, with a soft spot for Shakespeare and a hope that someday someone would write him a _Pride & Prejudice _musical. He’d been teasing Lucy for years that she should write him a musical, probably because he knew about her college dream of running away to be in a band and her tendency to sing Sinatra and Fitzgerald songs when she was tipsy.

“Someday, I’ll wear you down.” Mason slid the omelet onto a waiting plate with some bacon, then set it in front of Lucy.

“How late did you stay up?” Amy asked.

“Two in the morning.” She hadn’t been up that late in a writing frenzy since… wow, she couldn’t even remember. A while, clearly.

But in the weeks that she’d been working with Wyatt and Flynn she had felt electrified. The cases stretched her mind, helped her to feel like she was actually giving back to the world in a personal, tangible way besides just writing checks all the time, and bantering with the two of them was hilarious. Flynn and Wyatt fought constantly and over everything from coffee orders to interrogation techniques, but they were also joined at the hip. Lucy, personally, wouldn’t have had it any other way. Wyatt got Flynn to lighten up, and Flynn challenged Wyatt to be a better version of himself. It was obvious, even in just the short time that she’d known them, that they had grown a lot for each other.

And if sometimes they had an inside joke or a reference that she didn’t get… well, she just asked them, and they kindly explained, and she jotted it down for research. It didn’t make her feel left out.

Or it shouldn’t, anyway.

“I want to meet these new friends of yours,” Mason noted, passing Amy her own plate of food. “See what they’re really like.”

“Oh, God, Connor, no.” The last thing she needed was her eccentric godfather-slash-roommate to start interrogating her new friends.

Her only friends.

“I want to meet them too!” Amy added, perking right up.

“If I have my way, neither of you will ever meet them.” Her phone went off with “Friction” by Imagine Dragons playing.

Amy’s eyebrows rose as Lucy held up a warning finger. “Rufus prank-changes our ringtones if we leave our phones anywhere near him,” she said. “And not a word from either of you.”

Mason just smirked.

Lucy answered the phone. “Morning Flynn!”

“Please tell me he didn’t change your ringtone,” Flynn said wearily.

“Now, why would I lie to you like that?”

Flynn yelled something muffled that most definitely was aimed at Rufus and was probably not at all flattering. “We have a murder. Thought you might be interested.”

“Send me the address and I’m there.”

* * *

Flynn appreciated Rufus for many reasons but changing his ringtone to “I Wanna Do Bad Things with You” from _True Blood_ for whenever Lucy called and some Shakira song of all goddamn things for when Wyatt called was _not _one of them.

“The look on your face,” Rufus said, grinning and unrepentant as Flynn strode up to him. “I wish I could take my phone out and get a picture.”

“It’s going to be nothing compared to the way your face’ll look in a minute…”

“Okay, I’ve got confirmation,” Jess said, walking up. “Nobody knew the family was on vacation.”

“The family?” Flynn asked.

“The ones who live here and found the body,” Jess said. “They came home from vacation to find that someone had been squatting in their house while they were gone. I assume it was the dead guy. I asked if they’d told anyone they were going out of town, they said nobody knew.”

“Somebody did, obviously,” Flynn replied.

“Yeah, but—” Jess paused, staring at something over Flynn’s shoulder.

Flynn turned around and saw Lucy walking up. That wasn’t unusual, though, nowadays. Sure, Lucy looked… she looked no less… well, she looked good, but she always looked good.

Then Flynn saw that there was someone following Lucy, dressed much more casually than the famous author, in jeans and a t-shirt with sneakers. She had dark blonde hair, and a slightly wider face, but Flynn saw some similarities between the two women that led him to suspect…

“Who’s that with Lucy?” Jess whispered.

“Dunno,” Rufus said, unhelpfully.

Lucy walked up, the younger woman next to her. “Morning!” she handed Flynn a coffee, like always.

God he hated how they were always giving each other coffee now. And by hated, he meant—well.

“So this is your crew, huh?” the other woman asked, looking around.

Jess quickly peeled off her forensic gloves, sticking out her hand. “Hi, I’m Jessica Logan. I’m a homicide detective. I take down bad guys. All the time.”

…y’know, Flynn had always wondered how Wyatt had managed to bag as gorgeous and smart a woman as Jess. Now he knew: Jess was just as bad at flirting as Wyatt was.

Not that Flynn had seen Wyatt flirt often, aside from witnessing Wyatt’s ridiculous crush on Lucy.

Flynn wasn’t sure how to feel about that whole thing.

“Hi, I’m Amy.” Amy shook Jess’s hand. “I’m Lucy’s sister. So you… you catch bad guys, huh? That has to be super dangerous.”

Jess practically preened. “It sure is, but I’m not afraid of a little danger.”

“Oh my God,” Rufus muttered. “I’m going to go talk to Jiya.”

He walked over to where Jiya was examining the body, presumably so he could start flirting with Jiya just as badly as Jess was flirting with Amy. For Christ’s sake, what had his team turned into?

Lucy looked over at him. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. “Amy does this everywhere.”

“Jess has never done this,” Flynn whispered back. “I have no idea what was in her coffee this morning.”

Lucy eyed the two women, who were giggling at each other like schoolkids. “Listen when my sister bangs Jess for two weeks and then moves on I am not responsible for Jess’s tears, are we clear on this?”

“And here I thought you were the heartbreaker,” Flynn noted.

Lucy leveled a glare at him. “I am the good sister, I’ll have you know, I had one steady girlfriend all through college and then just one relationship after that. Amy’s the one who banged the entire cheerleading team.”

Wyatt walked up, accepting his to-go cup of coffee from Lucy. “Um, why is my ex-wife flirting with some random woman?”

“That’s my sister,” Lucy told him.

“And Rufus is flirting with Jiya,” Flynn said. “Why is everyone flirting? This is a crime scene, can’t everybody just be professional?”

“Exactly,” Wyatt and Lucy chorused.

“Thank God we’re not like that,” Wyatt added.

“Oh my God!” Amy happily grabbed Jess’s wrists, grinning. “That is brilliant, you guys!” She looked over at the rest of them. “Lucy, we should totally have a get-together at the loft! Have all your new friends over!”

Lucy looked like someone had doused her in freezing water. “I… I don’t know if anyone wants to…”

“Of course we do,” Jess said, in that warm and insistent tone that Flynn knew so well. It was the same tone she had used when she would stay over at the apartment, back in the early days when he and Wyatt were both messes just barely propping each other up.

“Uh…” Lucy’s gaze darted from Wyatt, to Flynn, to Jess. “If you’re sure…”

“It’ll be great, it’s been forever since we had a party.” Amy grinned. “Nothing big, but you know, something to bring life back to the place.”

Bring life back to the place? Flynn didn’t know any reason for Amy to say that.

It occurred to him that he knew very little about Lucy’s private life.

“If you really want to,” Lucy replied, her voice holding a curious tone, “then of course we can.”

Amy jumped, grinning, still holding onto Jess’s wrists. Jess looked like she was having a heart attack. “Perfect! Don’t worry, I’ll get it all set up.”

She finally released Jess’s wrists, hugged Lucy goodbye, and then headed off.

“She drove me here,” Lucy said, sounding apologetic.

“Don’t worry about it,” Flynn said. “So, the case…”

* * *

Wyatt propped his feet up on the desk. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

“Get your feet off the desk,” Flynn said from the other side.

Wyatt hid his grin behind the file he was looking at. The man they had found in the loft was identified as a travel insurance agent, which had led them to believe that he was the travel agent for the family who’d discovered him—but the family hadn’t used a travel agent. They had won their trip in a lottery.

“Why would a guy with a steady job be shacking up at other people’s places?” Wyatt asked. “I’m looking at his financials right now and he doesn’t seem to be that hard up.”

“Rufus is working his magic with the SIM card on the phone,” Flynn replied, flipping through his own set of files.

It was quiet. Companionable. The way it always had been.

Well, how it had come to be, after that first year. Wyatt was never going to forget the first year of yelling, and fights, the both of them fucked up. Flynn was fucked up by grief. Wyatt was fucked up from trauma he had never addressed, and the toxic behavior he’d developed as a result.

It had just never occurred to him that as well as being a victim of abuse, he could be a perpetrator.

“What do you think about—I mean, how are things going with Lucy?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn had been reluctant to bring her on board at first, he knew, and even after Lucy’s apology with the whole Lorena and Iris thing… stuff had been tentative, between Flynn and Lucy, for a little while.

Wyatt liked Lucy. She was whip smart, and funny, and the more time they spent with her the more he saw this strange vulnerability peeking out underneath the loud, flirtatious bravado. But if he had to choose between her and the man he’d been in love with for years… yeah, he knew which way he was going.

Flynn shrugged. “She’s… she provides valuable insights to cases.”

“Oh come on, Flynn, I’m not Denise or a reporter. Be honest.”

Flynn glared at him over the top of the file. “What do you want me to say, Wyatt?”

_That you’re smitten and it can be seen from space? _“I don’t know, I just… want to make sure you’re okay, I guess. I get the feeling that there’s stuff Lucy isn’t telling us, about herself.”

“I trust her.” Flynn closed the file and set it down. “She messed up but she was well-intentioned and… I don’t know, Wyatt, I just trust her.”

Wyatt shrugged. “You always did have more faith than I did.”

Flynn snorted. “That’s a crock of bullshit. You’ve heard me.”

Flynn hadn’t been to mass, or inside a church at all, since his family had been murdered. The few times Wyatt had overheard him talking to God it was more like arguing than praying.

“Yeah, and you haven’t,” Wyatt replied. Wyatt was Christian in the sense that was just what you were in the town where he grew up. He didn’t really know what he actually believed. Sure, there was a God, he supposed. But he didn’t really think about it.

Flynn raised an eyebrow at him, the corner of his mouth turning up. “It would take a goddamn code black to get you to pray, huh?”

Wyatt rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t my point.”

“What was your point?”

_Is Lucy going to change what we are, is she going to change what we have, is she…_

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that’s all.”

“I am,” Flynn replied. Wyatt had been around him long enough to know when Flynn was lying, and Flynn was sure as hell lying right now, but about what, exactly, Wyatt wasn’t sure. “Let’s go check on Rufus and that SIM card.”

Wyatt got up and followed him, like he always did.

* * *

Jess couldn’t afford to _breathe_ in this damn apartment complex. Welcome to Manhattan.

The fact that she was about to walk into the apartment of the first person she’d been genuinely attracted to in forever was probably not helping with her nerves.

She’d had passing moments of attraction, sure. And it wasn’t like she’d had any lack of offers during that time. But she’d taken one look at Amy Preston and she’d felt her stomach go tight and hot and she’d just thought, _holy shit_.

A few one night stands had happened since she’d made the divorce with Wyatt official. She wasn’t like a certain idiot she knew, pining after his roommate and never doing anything about it. But it was just a bit of fun, a release of tension. She’d never gotten a genuine crush. And hey, it was a good thing. After being with the same man for over a decade—a man she had known since they were in first grade together—she’d needed a few damn years on her own, swinging single.

But now—now she definitely had a crush. And fuck, Jess had no idea what to do about that. She and Wyatt had just fallen together, brought together by their friendship, by hardship, and by the dark secrets and acts they shared. Actually courting someone, so to speak?

Yeah, good fucking luck.

Jess shook herself, trying to get rid of her nerves. C’mon, girl, you saw murders every day and this was what made her stomach twist?

She knocked on the door.

“Hey! You made it!” Amy Preston opened the door, grinning. She was such a smiling, happy person, and that was probably the first thing Jess had noticed about her. “C’mon in!”

“How many others are coming?” Jess asked, wary of a crazy party.

This loft was… it was really night. Light and airy, with high ceilings and a big, open area divided into two seconds by bookshelves. One section had various couches and a large television against the wall, and then the other appeared to be a writing office for Lucy. Against the opposite wall was a slightly raised area holding a large kitchen and an island, and to the side was a large table currently set up for a poker game. To the left, stairs led up to a second floor. The walls were exposed brick, and the whole place had a very jazzy, 1920s kind of design feel to it. It definitely fit Lucy’s personality.

“Just you, and Rufus and Jiya, and Captain Christopher and her wife, and then Flynn and Wyatt,” Amy replied. “Lucy doesn’t do well with large parties.”

“Wait, really?” Jess couldn’t believe it. “But she’s so…”

“Social?” Amy gave an odd smile. “Yeah, she’s good at that.”

“At last!” Someone with a British accent and a dramatic tone said from the stairs.

Standing at the top was an older black man with a wide face and dark eyes. He hurried down. “You must be the lovely Jess. Lucy’s described you all in such detail. Did you know in her book you’re going to be an assassin?”

“Works for me,” Jess replied, shaking the man’s hand. “And you are?”

“Connor Mason.”

Jess nearly choked on her own spit. “You’re…”

“Yes, yes, but please, let’s pretend I’m just Amy and Lucy’s godfather. Which I am, actually, so, it works.” He winked at her, and then the door opened behind them and Jess heard Rufus and Jiya arriving.

Of course they’d arrived together. When was Rufus going to put on his big boy pants and get his shit together to ask her out?

“Anything I can help with?” Jess asked, following Amy to the kitchen. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Figuring out what to wear,” Amy replied. “Like always.”

“She cares a lot about her appearance.” It wasn’t a judgment, just an observation.

“It’s her shield.”

The door opened again and Flynn and Wyatt entered, followed by Denise with Michelle. “Gang’s all here,” Jess observed. “What do you mean, shield?”

Amy gave a short laugh. “She’d kill me if I told you this, but Lucy’s a lot more insecure than she’d have you think.”

“I work with those two numbskulls.” Jess jerked her thumb at Wyatt and Flynn, who were now chatting with Mason. “I’m used to that kind of thing.”

Amy laughed. “Good. She needs people like you around her. I’ll be honest I’ve been dying to meet you all, Lucy talks so much about you—it’s like she’s alive again. You all seem like really great people, in general and for her.”

“Is Lucy… okay?” Jess said, opting for a more general phrasing.

Amy leaned on her elbows conspiratorially. “Honestly, I don’t know. After Mom died… our Mom was a great person but she was also really—controlling. In a subtle way. It was hard to go against what she wanted for you. Lucy’s biggest act of rebellion was becoming a writer instead of a history professor like Mom. And Mom found a way to control that, too. We moved from Stanford to New York so that Mom could help Lucy pursue her writing career, she was Lucy’s manager, it was crazy. We had a lot of disagreements but Mom was just this—this huge presence in our lives and now that she’s gone, we both had no clue what to do.

“For me it was better. I realized I wanted to be a nurse, and I’m pursuing that. And yes, feel free to make all the jokes you want.” Amy winked at her, looking elfin and mischievous, and Jess felt her stomach melting again. “But… yeah, for me, Mom dying was—it was awful but it was also freedom. For Lucy I think it’s meant losing who she was, because so much of who she was… was Mom. And she’s just now discovering who she really is, with you guys. I’ve seen her smile more in the last few weeks than she has in years, and I just—I just want you guys to know the good you’re doing for her, and how much I appreciate it.”

Jess took Amy’s hand before her courage failed her and she swallowed the impulse. “Lucy’s a good person. We want to help her. And hey, without going into detail? We’re all messed up people here. We’ve all got scars. She’s one of us now, and that means we’ll look after her.”

Amy squeezed Jess’s hand, her thumb rubbing slowly across Jess’s knuckles. Wow, the oxygen sure went out of the room really quickly. “Thanks, Jess.”

“Uh-huh,” Jess managed. “So, uh, this nursing thing, you really like it, huh? What’s it like working in a hospital?”

“Way less sex than on television,” Amy promised her. “Nobody ready and willing to help a girl out when she needs it…”

She was gonna choke on her own damn saliva and die. “I should go say hi to the others,” she croaked.

Amy shrugged. “Sure. Or I could give you a tour of the place.”

“What sort of tour?”

Amy winked at her. “The kind that ends in my bedroom.”

…the others could handle all this on their own, right?

* * *

“Ah, you must be the famous detectives!”

Flynn blinked in surprise as an older gentleman, the kind who sounded and looked like he belonged in the Victorian era, walked up to him and Wyatt. “Let me guess, you’re Flynn, and the one with the slack jaw is Logan.”

Wyatt snapped his jaw shut. “I’m gonna go say hi to Rufus,” he mumbled, scurrying away.

Flynn turned politely to the man who’d greeted them. “And you are?”

“Connor Mason. I’ve been living with Lucy and Amy for the past year, helping them after Carol passed.”

“After—what?”

Mason seemed to realize he’d said the wrong thing. “Ah, Carol? Lucy’s mother, she—well, it was rather depressing. Their father Henry passed only two and a half years ago, and then Carol last year, it’s been quite a hard time on the two girls. Slowed down Lucy’s writing considerably. Haven’t seen her be her usual self until you two came along. Did you know you’re a time traveler in her book?”

“I’ve told Lucy I want to know as little about the damn thing as possible.” He wanted to be surprised when the book came out and he read it. He didn’t want to know the plot twists ahead of time. And if everyone else thought it meant he wasn’t interested so he could keep his fanboy status a secret… well that was just a bonus, wasn’t it?

Mason chuckled. “Ah, yes, well, I won’t torture you with details, then. Suffice to say, I’m quite impressed with you two.”

“And I’m impressed, or is that the right word to use, that an award-winning theatre producer is crashing in someone else’s loft.”

Mason raised his eyebrows. “I did not take you for a man who knew his theatre.”

“I played Hamlet in high school, always had a soft spot for it.”

“Oh did you now? I suspect we have more to talk about than I’d thought. Help settle a bet for me—or rather a longstanding argument—did Hamlet, in your opinion, have a good or bad relationship with his father?”

Flynn hadn’t expected anyone besides Lucy and her sister at the loft, much less someone that he actually liked talking to, but Mason was—a breath of eccentric fresh air. And Flynn did mean eccentric. The guy acted like that weird rich uncle in British mystery novels, the kind of rich person that you actually liked because he spent his wealth on fun wacky things and his death caused a bunch of wild scrambling to find the clues to his will. He could see why Lucy and Amy liked him.

Then Rufus got pulled into the conversation, and he and Mason somehow hit it off over technology, of all things, that had Mason wanting to know where Rufus had been all his life and telling Rufus to quit the police force and come work for Mason designing mechanized sets, and that was the point where Flynn bowed out of the conversation. Not that either man noticed—they were arguing about multiverse and string theory, whatever the actual hell that meant.

Funny, though, despite this being her loft, Flynn didn’t see Lucy.

Wyatt was chatting with Michelle and Jiya. Denise was perusing the bookshelves. Jess was helping Amy with the wine in the kitchen. It was the most touchy-feely session of wine opening that Flynn had ever seen but he was just steadfastly ignoring any and all flirting that went on between his teammates, he had decided.

So where was Lucy?

This was a bad idea. He told himself that as he went upstairs, as he rapped softly on the doors, as he reached the one at the end of the hall and heard a soft _come in_, and went inside.

But he still did it.

Lucy was sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing a half-unzipped light blue dress. She was staring at herself in the mirror like she’d just finished a passionate rendition of “Reflection” from _Mulan_.

“You’re missing a fun time,” Flynn said, closing the door behind him. “I think Mason’s about to bust out Cards Against Humanity. You’re the only person I think who could possibly beat Rufus’s winning streak at that.”

Lucy snorted, offering up an attempt at an amused smile. It fit her face wrong. “Sorry. I’m, uh… the last time I had people here, it was my mother’s funeral.”

A year ago. Right.

Flynn carefully walked around the outfits strewn all over the floor, cast-off possibility for the evening, and sat down on the bed next to her. “Do you need us to leave?”

Lucy shook her head. “I need this. I know I do. I just…” She shrugged. “I thought, when I—when I sent in my manuscript that I’d stood up to Mom and forged my own path. But it was really still just doing what she wanted me to do. And now that she’s gone… I’m faced with all these choices and the person who used to give me all the answers isn’t around anymore.

“I think… not to, ah, poke at a bruise, but I think that’s part of why I delved right into your case. Your family’s case. I wanted to—to thank you and help you so badly because I wanted to be a part of something so badly. But I’m also scared of it. So it was… rushing in because I needed it but also some kind of… self-destruction? I suppose?” Lucy looked away from him, back towards the mirror. “I don’t know.”

“I thought I knew who I was,” Flynn said, keeping his voice low. “Then someone ordered my wife killed, and my child was caught up in it, and I lost them. Everything I thought I knew about myself… was gone. I did things, and I was willing to do more things, that I never had thought I was capable of doing. Life likes to throw that kind of… curveball at us. And we try to behave rationally, and to see it through, but sometimes our worst impulses get the better of us and next thing we know we’re stabbing a man behind a curtain.”

Lucy gave a genuine smile that time. “Careful, don’t let Mason here you making Shakespeare references or you’ll never escape him.”

“Too late.”

Lucy groaned, but she laughed through it.

“None of us know who we are, either, is my point, Lucy.” Flynn shrugged. “Wyatt sure as fuck doesn’t know. I think Rufus is more lost than he’d like to admit. Jess… she carries something, I don’t know what, but she carries something with her, and she won’t talk to anyone about it. We’ve all got things. We’ll… we’ll figure it out together. We’ll be patient with you, is what I mean.”

Lucy turned her head a bit, looking up at him through her lashes, and Flynn found his breath was no longer there, no air in his lungs, and every fiber of him was painfully aware of how close they were sitting.

He stood up, nearly knocking Lucy off the bed. “But anyway, I should—let you get changed, I should go.”

Lucy looked at him oddly as he literally fled the room, but really, it was fine, he just—it was safer downstairs, surrounded by everyone else.

* * *

Jess walked up behind Wyatt, who was rubbing at his temples. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Wyatt jumped a mile. “Jesus fucking—would you quit doing that?”

“And stop earning the satisfaction of that look on your face? Hell no.”

Wyatt glared at her. “I’m just—this case, it’s ridiculous.”

He gestured at the murder board that he’d been glaring at this whole time. “So this squatter, it was his cellphone at the scene, not our victim’s. This guy is a newspaper delivery guy. That’s how he knows when people are on vacation—they pause their subscription to the paper so the papers don’t pile up and tip burglars off that nobody’s home.”

“So what was our victim doing there?”

“Exactly. Now our squatter says that he was staying at this apartment when he hears these three guys enter. He hides in the closet and hears them arguing about something. One guy leaves, and the other two keep fighting, and bam! Our victim is strangled to death.”

“Did he get a look at the man’s face?”

“He said he was really ordinary looking. The kind of face that disappears into a crowd.”

“Helpful.”

“I know, right? But it’s all we’ve got. We wouldn’t even have found that out if Lucy hadn’t realized the whole paper subscription thing.”

“How did she realize that?”

“Beats me, she just—she sees things nobody else does.” Wyatt could feel himself grinning and tried to stifle it. Lucy was—she was a bit unconventional, yeah, but it was amazing, watching her face light up as she made a connection.

Jess hummed. “You really appreciate having her on the team.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He could tell that she was getting at something, but he had no idea what.

Jess’s eyes stayed on the murder board. “You know you don’t have to hide how you feel, right?”

“H-how I feel?” Oh, fuck, had she noticed him and Flynn had she—

“I can tell you’re into her, Wyatt, we didn’t sleep together for ten years for nothing.”

He was so goddamn relieved that his knees nearly crumpled. He’d worked way too hard to hide his feelings for Flynn, to hide the awful choking, strangling feeling that accompanied it, to be able to handle talking about it now. Lucy knew and that was already bad enough.

A slightly hysterical laugh burst out of him. “You’re serious? You think I’m into Lucy?”

“Oh, my God, Wyatt, don’t insult my intelligence.” Jess rolled her eyes. “Just do me a favor and don’t be an asshole about it, okay?”

“I’m not going to do anything with Lucy, I can promise you that.” Yeah, no way. So, he might be into her. She was gorgeous, and smart, and she was being really kind about her little, ah, revelation and wasn’t treating him with sympathy with the whole Flynn thing, which Wyatt really appreciated.

But he wasn’t going to do anything about it. That would be a great way to implode his professional relationship and his relationship with Flynn at the same time. No way.

Jess hummed again. “All right. Just… I worry about you, sometimes.”

“Thanks, Jess.” He knew she was well-intentioned. A lot of times—too many times—he’d assumed the worst of her. He’d promised himself, and their therapist, that he’d do better about that. “And, uh, you and Amy seem to be getting on well.”

He had the distinct pleasure of watching Jess’s face get pink. “We’re just—yeah. Seeing where it goes.”

“Right, because making out upstairs for half an hour is seeing where it goes.”

“Asshole.” Jess shoved at his shoulder.

“But hey, I just—you can talk to me about it, y’know? It won’t be awkward.”

“Oh, please, it’ll be awkward.” Jess winked at him. “But in a fun way.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Not your job anymore, Logan.”

* * *

Flynn groaned, rolling over as the phone rang.

He didn’t sleep well at night. Neither did Wyatt. They had a bad habit of staying up late talking, and often fell asleep together on top of either Wyatt’s bed or his.

Last night, it had been his.

Flynn struggled to ignore Wyatt, spread out on his stomach, looking soft and years younger in the morning light. Wyatt had a goofy sort of look about him when he was still, all those adorably awkward features about him on display like his slightly stuck-out ears, and it made Flynn’s heart pound so loudly it was like drums echoing in his ears.

He groped for his phone, answering it groggily. “Hello?”

“Flynn?” It was Christopher. “Where’s Wyatt?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You answered his phone.”

…well just fuck him running, then.

“Haven’t had my coffee yet, Christopher, just wanted to stop the damn phone ringing. Wyatt must’ve left it out here. I assume we’ve got a case?”

“Strangulation in an alley. I’ll send you the address.”

Wyatt curled a little closer to Flynn and he thought he might have a stroke. Jesus, there was still a whole two inches of space between them, and yet it might as well have been the Grand Canyon and the width of a thread, simultaneously. “Sounds good,” Flynn said, knowing he sounded like someone was strangling him and scraping his words out from the bottom of his throat.

Luckily, Denise was not the kind of person who asked about the personal lives of her people unless she felt it was necessary. Thank God at least one person in this damn precinct respected privacy.

Flynn hung up, tossing the phone aside, and got up to step into the shower. It would be painfully easy to wake Wyatt with even just a soft touch to his shoulder, but he was not going to tap dance all over that line in the sand. It was a fragile enough line already. Wyatt was straight, and Flynn had learned long ago not to even try it with the straight guys. He also knew that there was such a thing as co-dependency. Wyatt had been there for him through some really dark shit, and they’d seen each other at their absolute worst. Once they’d even gotten into a fist fight, with Jess having to pry them apart. It was natural that he might feel… something. Didn’t mean it was right to act on it.

Wyatt was up and out of the room by the time Flynn stepped out of the shower, which was just fine by Flynn. He ignored the imprint of Wyatt’s body on his bed and got dressed, then made coffee, adding hazelnut to Wyatt’s.

He might have spent a year trying out different types of coffee on Wyatt as Wyatt bitched at him about just liking it black until the bastard finally gave in and just let Flynn give him the damn coffee that they both knew Wyatt really wanted.

“What have we got?” Wyatt asked as they got into the car.

“Strangulation,” Flynn replied. He hoped that was it. Body in an alley, those tended to be the tail end of a particular kind of crime, and it filled him with rage every time.

Wyatt called Lucy as Flynn drove—Flynn always drove, unless he wanted to flirt with death, in which case he let Wyatt drive. Part of why Wyatt and Jess had joined the police in Texas was to make up for Wyatt’s teenage years as a moonshine runner over the border, and Wyatt still drove like he was trying to beat the damn border patrol.

Lucy pulled up as they got there, climbing out wearing a dark green coat that brought out the rich brown of her eyes and hair. God, he needed more coffee, he was not in any way ready for this.

“Morning!” As if in answer to his prayers, Lucy handed him and Wyatt each a cup of coffee.

God liked to answer his prayers in the worst way possible.

“What have we got?” Wyatt asked as the three of them made their way down the alley to where Rufus and Jiya were set up.

“Her name is Linda Russo,” Rufus said, gesturing at the woman. She was blonde and looked oddly peaceful despite the precise marks of rope around her neck from where she’d been strangled. It was as if the killer had carefully laid her out after murdering her.

Lucy froze for an almost imperceptible second.

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

Lucy shook her head. “Nothing.”

“No, it’s never nothing with you, Lucy. You’re good at this, defend your turf.”

He told himself that Lucy’s answering blush didn’t affect him. “Well it’s just that… a lovely blonde woman, laid out peacefully, strangled with a thin cord of rope…”

Flynn realized what she was getting at. “That was four years ago.” It was his last case before… well.

“And he was never caught. He killed three women in a week, disappeared for a month, killed three more, then vanished.” Lucy gestured at the body. “You know as well as I do that they never stop. They kill again.”

“Then why the four year gap?”

Lucy shrugged. “Maybe he was out of town, doing his thing somewhere else?”

“Why are we assuming it’s a man?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn opened his mouth, then closed it again. Wyatt didn’t know about this either. Flynn had never told him.

“There was a witness that identified a maintenance man in her building using the elevator,” Jiya said. “He was supposed to be checking something with the cable company, but the witness had worked for a cable company and she saw he didn’t have any of the right equipment. The guy got off at a random floor right after. It’s as close as we’ve gotten to a positive I.D. on the Triple Killer.”

Wyatt stared. “The Triple Killer?”

“Wait, how do you know that?” Lucy asked Jiya. “That was never in the news. If it was I would’ve known about it. Mom was terrified that Amy would be the next victim, we followed the case closely.”

Flynn managed to give Jiya the cut-throat gesture behind Lucy’s back. Jiya raised her eyebrows. “Because… a had a friend in the precinct who handled the case.”

Flynn gave her a thumbs up.

Lucy turned around and squinted at him. “You’re acting very odd, did you know that?”

Flynn shrugged. “You forgot to put on lipstick today, did you know that?”

“Because that response didn’t make any of this any weirder,” Wyatt noted, deadpan.

Flynn wished fervently for death.

* * *

Lucy sat perched on Flynn’s desk as Flynn studiously ignored her to do his paperwork. Something had gone on during the crime scene that she didn’t seem to be privy to, one of those unspoken moments between Wyatt and Flynn, and now the two of them were at odds about it.

“I’m not talking about it,” Flynn said, turning a page.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Lucy replied. She scrolled through the news on her phone. “I’m just sitting here, waiting for a break in our third man case.”

“Well, we found the second guy, dead,” Flynn said. He paused as Wyatt walked up and sat down on the other side of the desk, avoiding Flynn’s eyes.

Lucy kept scrolling through the news on her phone. A text popped up from Amy. Excellent, a distraction.

“You don’t have to walk on fucking eggshells,” Flynn snapped at Wyatt.

“I’m not walking on eggshells for you, dumbass, ever occurred to you I was just upset?”

“Upset about what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe I’m upset that in four years of knowing each other you never said, hey Wyatt—”

“Oh, yeah, because there was a great moment to just drop that bomb on you—”

Amy had sent her a link with the message, _do you want me to call the paper and handle this?_

Lucy clicked the link.

“I just don’t want you beating yourself up about this—”

“Do I look like I’m beating myself up?”

“Yeah, you kind of do.”

Lucy nearly dropped the phone as the headline screamed at her.

**Is New York City’s Most Eligible Bachelorette Off the Market?**

What—oh no…

_Bestselling author, NYC’s star socialite, and humanitarian champion Lucy Preston has been on the list of our Top Ten Most Eligible Bachelorettes ever since her split from fiancé Noah Cirillo in 2013. But if Cirillo was any indication, Preston likes them tall, dark, and handsome, and that’s exactly the profile of the NYPD Homicide Detective Garcia Flynn…_

Oh fuck this.

“You realize that you’re doing that thing where someone else has a problem and you’re making it about you, right?” Flynn was saying.

“You know you’re doing that thing where you decide to be a goddamn martyr and blame yourself for literally everything wrong in the universe, right?” Wyatt shot back.

Lucy quickly exited out of the article and texted Amy back. _Yes, please, if Flynn sees this he’ll kill me._

The last thing Flynn needed was publicity, especially with 3XK back in action.

And then Jess said, gleefully, from two desks over, “Hey, Flynn, do you ever read the society pages?”

* * *

“I have no life,” Flynn announced, walking into the morgue.

Jiya stared at him. “No, Mr. Bishop has no life. That’s why he’s on my slab.”

“Very. Funny. Jiya.” Flynn braced his hands on the table. “Seriously. You’re always telling me I have no life.”

“It’s true. I am.” Jiya kept glancing at the clock. “But don’t you think this is the kind of thing you should complain to Wyatt about? Usually you dump all your freakouts on him. Or Rufus.”

“I do not have freakouts.”

“You ranted for an hour once about the inaccurate portrayal of Russian accents in media.”

“They’re all behind the Iron Curtain bullshit accents, nobody actually sounds like that in Russia anymore unless they’re from bumfuck nowhere in Siberia—”

Jiya absently twirled the scalpel in her hand as if to remind him that she was very good with sharp objects. “What’s this really about, Flynn? Why are you doing here bothering me and my human popsicles?”

“I asked you to never call them that again.”

“Why do you think I keep calling them that?”

Flynn rolled his eyes. “You don’t read the society pages, do you?”

“The what? No, what, do I look like I’m forty? I read Buzzfeed like everyone else.” Jiya set down her tools. “Why? Is this about the Triple Killer?”

“…no.” Wyatt had put the pieces together and was now giving Flynn hell for not telling him that it was Flynn’s case right before Lorena and Iris had died. Lucy was still in the dark, thank God, although who knew how long that was going to last.

It was just collateral damage in the wake of his loss. There was always that sort of thing, when you lost someone. It was never just the loss. The loss was a pebble dropped into a pond, and by the time the ripples reached shore, they’d turned into a tsunami. Aspects of your life, of the lives of others, that you’d never even thought about just… devastated and knocked flat.

Flynn pulled up the article on his phone and showed it to Jiya.

She was clearly stifling laughter. “And this has made you decide that you have no life, how?”

“Because—because the only time I go out anywhere it’s with Lucy or Wyatt or both. And since we live in a heteronormative hellscape of a society everyone assumes—well they just think—and so I’m asking you, please, to help me have a life so that people will stop speculating that I’m with Lucy when I’m not.”

“And you really care what a gossip rag thinks of you?” Jiya smirked at him. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“I told Christopher,” Flynn warned, pointing at Jiya. “I told her that if Lucy’s presence changed things here at all… she’s a celebrity, she’s bringing unwanted attention…”

“Oh my God, Flynn.” Jiya rolled her eyes. “Give it two days and they’ll move onto how Leonardo di Caprio only dates nineteen-year-olds. There’s always a new scandal. Just keep your head down. How is this any different from when we have a big case?”

_Because it’s personal, _Flynn wanted to say. _Because it hits too close to home. Because the look on Lucy’s face when someone suggested we might be together has me wanting to throw up. Because she seemed horrified at the idea of us together and I didn’t know that would hurt so much._

“You’re right,” he said stiffly. “It isn’t. I’ll just… sorry for, ah, yes.”

The door opened and Rufus walked in. “Yeah, I know, I lost the bet, here are your Ho Hos you damn heathen… ah, hey, Flynn, did not expect you here.”

“Heathen?” Flynn queried.

“She doesn’t like Chocodiles,” Rufus replied. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here, shouldn’t you be working on the lead for the third man?”

“We still don’t even know what these guys were arguing about, Flynn.”

“They were arguing about millions of dollars being on the line, Rufus—”

“Well I got an ID here,” Jiya chirped. “Mr. Bishop, as you can see, is right here before you, number two of our three-man crew. Unlike our other guy this one has a record. He’s been in and out of prison for various, get this, robbery charges over the years.”

“But there’s nothing that was in the apartment worth millions of dollars, if they were robbing the place…”

Jiya shrugged. “That’s for the bad guys to know and you to go find out while I ask Rufus if he’s ready to give in and watch _Star Trek _with me.”

“I will sacrifice many things for you,” Rufus said solemnly, “but every man has his code of honor.”

“Right.” Jiya rolled her eyes. “But when I say _Star Wars _is dumb…”

Flynn decided that beating a hasty retreat as the two descended into a geeky bickering war was the best course of action.

* * *

Wyatt nodded at Flynn as Flynn walked up. Lucy was sitting in Flynn’s chair, and Wyatt wasn’t about to be the one who moved her.

Flynn and Lucy, however, seemed determined to ignore each other after the whole ‘are they or aren’t they dating’ article, and Flynn looked at Wyatt instead. “You finished being petty?”

“I don’t know, Flynn, you finished the whole Catholic guilt session?”

It wasn’t Flynn fault that the Triple Killer had gotten away. It was the fault of whoever had been on the case after Flynn had released it. The man had lost his wife and daughter, how could anyone be expected to focus on work after that, especially stressful work like this? But no, Flynn just always had to beat himself up—

“The dumbwaiter!” Lucy blurted out, jumping to her feet.

They turned and looked at her. “What?” Flynn said.

Lucy waved a picture of the layout of the apartment. “Look, look, remember how we were in there and I said, _hey look at what they did with the dumbwaiter_, and you said, _Lucy can we please focus_, and then I said—”

“Yes, I remember the conversation,” Flynn said flatly.

“We couldn’t figure out why the burglars would be in that apartment, right? They didn’t take anything, so why would they be in there? But if you look at these blueprints…” Lucy pointed at the image. “…show that they never actually shut this thing down. It’s still operational!”

Wyatt watched Flynn’s eyes light up. Fuck, he loved when that happened. “So the thieves weren’t there for whatever was in the apartment, they were there for whatever the dumbwaiter could access. Another apartment?”

“Or…” Lucy waved another print-out. “The bank, perchance, that’s on the ground floor?”

“The ground floor on the other side of a very thick wall,” Wyatt replied, hating to burst their bubble. “Look.” He traced the blueprint with his finger. “If this dumbwaiter really does work it can’t access the bank unless they wanted to drill a hole in the wall. It accesses the upper apartments and the pet store on the ground floor.”

“Maybe there’s something in one of the other apartments?” Lucy suggested.

“Maybe there’s something in the pet store?” Flynn said.

Wyatt stared at him. Flynn shrugged. “What?”

They ended up going to the other apartments and checking in, but they also went to the pet store. Just in case.

Or, well, they tried. People kept coming up to Lucy. Mostly reporters.

“Miss Preston.” This one looked particularly oily, if that was even a way to describe a person. Wyatt didn’t care if it was or wasn’t, he just cared that this guy looked like he’d get something disgusting on Lucy if he shook her hand. “I was hoping you could comment on the speculation—”

“No comment,” Lucy snapped, her voice tight in a way that Wyatt had never heard it. “I’m working right now, so, if you don’t mind…”

“Working on what? What’s the case?”

“Jackass, you’re interfering with a police investigation,” Wyatt said, barely recognizing his own voice. “So unless you want me to charge you with obstruction of justice and haul your ass to the drunk tank, I think you should get out of the fucking way.”

The reporter backed down as Flynn gaped at him. “Holy shit.”

“What?” Wyatt shrugged. What the hell was Flynn looking at him like that for?

“Can we just get inside?” Lucy said, her voice now terribly soft and tired. “Please?”

Flynn gave a half-bow and opened the door to the pet store for her, sweeping Lucy inside ahead of him.

“Can I help you?” The owner, an older man with a slight accent and only a few tufts of white hair left, approached them. He looked the definition of harmless, shorter than Wyatt with a few extra pounds on him and a soft sort of air. Yeah, not the burglar type.

“We were hoping you could answer a few questions for us,” Flynn said. “There was a break-in at one of the apartments above you, and we were hoping we could access your back room?”

“A break in? How awful. I’m sure you can, but—I don’t know what my back room has to do with it. Right this way.”

Flynn followed the guy, but Lucy paused to peer at one of the tanks. A large snake was napping underneath the warming light. “Aren’t you so pretty,” she cooed.

Wyatt gently nudged her along. “We can admire Flynn’s cousins later.”

“I heard that,” Flynn called from the back room.

Lucy was telling the snake that she would be back to say hi later as Wyatt ushered her onwards.

Flynn had yanked aside a rack of what looked like dog food, and was gesturing at the very open, not unlocked dumbwaiter. “Has it always been like this?”

“N-no.” The shop owner looked terrified. “I—it should be locked, it always is, the entire time that I’ve been here.”

“Why would…” Wyatt paused.

Okay, so he had this bad habit. Sometimes, when he was struggling to sleep and didn’t want to bother Flynn, he would stay up late and watch nature documentaries. Also _Top Gear_. And _The Great British Bake Off_.

Anyway, one of those nature shows was about…

“Has any of your inventory gone missing lately?” Wyatt asked. “Any animals you don’t really want to tell us about that haven’t shown up like they should?”

Flynn looked at him, that sly quiet kind of look that meant he’d figured out what Wyatt was onto. God he loved that look more than possibly anything else in the world. “I think I’ll have to take a look at your shipping…”

“Everything that I get is entirely aboveboard,” the shop owner insisted. “You can look through my inventory, I have all of my animals, and they were all brought here the way they should be. I don’t deal in animal trading.”

Flynn gave the shop owner a look that said _if you move a muscle I’ll kill you _and then went to the filing cabinet.

Lucy was frowning, chewing on her lip. “Everything okay?” Wyatt asked.

“Yeah, no, just—had a random—it’s nothing.” Lucy waved her hand. “It’s adorable how you two do that.”

“Do what?”

“Read each other’s minds.”

“We do not…”

Flynn came back with the papers. “You want to explain why these snakes were routed through Africa?” he asked, pointing at what looked like some kind of manifesto. “Seems really out of the way for snakes that originate on an entirely different continent.”

“Africa?” Lucy said, sounding lost.

Oh, holy shit, his late-night television watching was coming in so handy right now. “Hey, Lucy, fun fact, did you know that it takes snakes weeks or even sometimes a month or two to digest a meal?”

Lucy looked at him like he was crazy. Wyatt looked at Flynn.

Flynn dropped the papers. “You are a fucking maniac,” he said, sounding a bit strangled. He looked at the shop owner. “Sir, I’m going to have to place you under arrest for diamond smuggling.”

* * *

They were just exiting the shop when it happened.

She’d thought that maybe everything had died down a bit, that the reporters had moved on, but even if the reporters had, some enterprising man hadn’t.

“Miss Preston, hey.” The guy smiled at her, and she thought he looked familiar, but couldn’t place where. “What luck to run into you, I was just chatting about you with a friend.”

Okay, that wasn’t creepy at all.

“Hello,” she said politely, because Mom had drilled _be nice to your fans _into her so deeply that Lucy was pretty sure it was tattooed on her damn spine by now. “Would you like an autograph?”

“How about your number?” the guy replied, and Lucy felt her throat closing up. The guy chuckled. “I’m Brad Devon, I was number three on the top ten bachelors list, congrats on getting the number one spot, by the way.”

_Of course his name is Brad, _Lucy thought nonsensically.

“Figured it would be best if we stuck together, you know?” he said, sounding conspiratorial. “Unless the rumors are true…”

“They’re not,” Lucy said, even though she really, really wished in that moment that they were, so that she could get this guy out of her face. Fuck, her claustrophobia was kicking in and she wasn’t even in a small space.

Sometimes she really hated men.

“Well, then how about—”

“Um, ‘scuse me?” She had no idea when Wyatt had gotten there but holy fuck was she grateful for him. “Are you offering up information about our investigation?”

Brad blinked at him. “Um, no, I’m—”

“Then you’d better move along.” Wyatt sounded like he was about two seconds from punching the guy. “You’re interrupting my consultant. For the police? You know, where we do super important work like solve murders? And so I know things like where to hide bodies so they are never, ever found again?”

Brad got the hint. Lucy still felt dizzy.

“Whoa, hey, let’s sit you down here.” Wyatt sounded very, very far away. “Yeah, no, Flynn, I got her, get the guy into the car—Lucy. Hey. I’m going to touch you, okay? I’m going to touch your face.”

Her face was carefully tilted up so that she was locking eyes with Wyatt. “Hey, I’m gonna need you to breathe with me, okay?”

Wyatt took her hand and put it on his chest. “You feel this? Breathe with it.” He inhaled slowly, deeply, and Lucy found herself inhaled in an echo. Exhale, inhale, exhale.

She blinked, the world swimming a little less. “There she is.” Wyatt smiled at her. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

To her embarrassment she found herself clutching at him. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

_Because that’s just what I do. _“I get—panic attacks, sometimes. When I feel claustrophobic.”

“Hey, a strange guy came up to you and asked for your number, it’s okay to feel a bit claustrophobic.” Wyatt shrugged. “And I used to have to talk Flynn down from his shit all the time, it’s okay. I don’t mind at all.” He smiled at her again, warm and wide, and Lucy had the sudden random thought that he was the cutest, puppy-est person she’d ever seen and also she kind of wanted to devour him whole.

“Thank you.” She was still holding onto him. “I—thank you.”

Wyatt helped her to stand up. Over by the car, Flynn was standing like some kind of bodyguard, watching the area around them in case someone else tried to walk up. “Fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, huh?”

Lucy gave a laugh, and hated how bitter she sounded. “I hate being famous,” she said, and then she pulled away before Wyatt could ask her about that.

* * *

“Any leads?” Denise demanded, even though it has only been twenty-four hours and Wyatt really didn’t see how they could possibly have any leads on the goddamn Triple Killer in that short of a time, even with everyone and their mother working the case.

Flynn gestured at the massive pile of papers. “We’re working on it.”

“We got a tip from Linda Russo’s roommate,” Wyatt offered. “Some guy from her work was following her, a…” He grabbed a file. “…Paul Heidecker. We interviewed him, checked his background, but he seems to be clean.”

“Why the alley?” Lucy murmured, scribbling in her ever-present leather-bound diary that she used for taking notes. “All the other women were killed in their homes. But not Linda.”

“Do we have the psy…” Flynn began.

Wyatt handed him the psychological profile from the last time the case was open.

Flynn stared at him oddly. “Thanks.”

Lucy glanced over at Flynn, who studiously avoided her gaze. They’d been doing that ever since Jess had let rip the whole dating thing from the news. It was real fun, and by fun, Wyatt meant he hated being in the middle of this nonsense. It wasn’t that Flynn or Lucy were upset with one another, exactly. More like they were both embarrassed and didn’t know how to handle it.

Wyatt would’ve said that was childish, but seeing as he would rather light himself on fire than tell Flynn how he felt about him, he was pretty sure he legally wasn’t allowed to judge.

“Well whoever he is, he’s sticking to his schedule—we have a second victim.” Denise held out a file. “Kim Foster.”

Wyatt’s stomach dropped out as Flynn all but threw his papers on the table.

“We did get one thing,” Denise noted. “Kim Foster was an interior designer. Jess noticed that for an interior designer her couch cushions looked haphazardly put together. I'm guessing she put up a fight. In between the cushions was a name tag, like from a—”

“—cable guy,” Lucy finished.

Denise nodded.

Flynn said something in Croatian, then shook his head. “I’m getting us more coffee. Send Jess and Rufus to interview the family.”

He got up and was gone.

* * *

Flynn smacked his hand against the break room coffee maker. “Oh, come on!”

“You know, talking nicely to it makes it work better,” Lucy said.

He turned to find her leaning against the doorframe, a fond smirk on her face. Fuck, he made his heart race in his throat like nothing else. “You say that, and yet it obeys me after I yell at it.”

“That’s just because you feel better after you get in a good lecture.” Lucy’s smirk softened into something else. “You okay? You kind of…”

“Stormed out of there?” Flynn snorted. “Yeah. It’s. Ah.”

“Is it the paper?” Lucy’s forehead creased.

Flynn stared at her. “The paper?” What did a paper have to do with the Triple Killer? What piece of paper?

“The—the whole—are they or aren’t they, thing?” Lucy shrugged. She seemed to shrink a little. “I never wanted… I never expected publicity to come to you guys like that. I mean, I give all these talks for the humanities, right? And nobody ever talks about that, nobody ever talks about the problems with capitalism, our society, history repeating itself, oh no, but my love life, _that_ sells…” Lucy was breathing hard and fast, like she had outside the pet store, and Flynn quickly passed her his cup of coffee.

Lucy took a few sips, her fingers shaking but her breathing evening out. “Sorry.”

“I did a little research on you,” Flynn said, skirting around the truth. “You’re right, about history repeating itself.”

“What good is my history degree if I don’t use it for something, right?” Lucy gave a short, shaky laugh. “Besides my books, I mean.” She paused, taking another sip of coffee. “But—look, I’m, I’m used to this. The spotlight. It’s not always fun but it’s my life. You’re not. And I don’t want you, or Wyatt, to be dragged into it.”

“Can we drag Rufus into it then?”

Lucy laughed, a real laugh, and Flynn felt his chest warm. “I’ll see what I can do.” She wrapped her fingers more firmly around the coffee cup. “Seriously, though. My… my ex-fiancé… he couldn’t handle it. And I mean, you’re—we’re not even—um.” She bit her lip.

Flynn tried to ignore that part, because that was a very dangerous, crumbling cliff he was standing on. “Your fiancé left you because you were too famous for him?”

Lucy shrugged. “It was a lot of reasons. Mom really pressured me to marry him. I think we rushed into things a little too quickly. I was… he’s a great guy. He’s a surgeon and he’s just really compassionate, but I didn’t… I was complacent. I wasn’t… challenged, I guess? I need someone who challenges me to be a better person and I just felt like I couldn’t really be myself, all of myself, all my… I don’t know.” She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m not here to talk about my doomed love life. My point is, I understand if it’s too much for you, and if you need me to stay away for a little while…”

“No.” The word burst out of Flynn with more speed and force than he’d expected. “I mean. Um. Wyatt would miss you if you left.”

“Wyatt, huh?”

“Yup. Can’t have him moping around the apartment all day.”

Lucy shook her head and took another sip of coffee, but Flynn though he saw a smile on her face, a faint pink flush to her cheeks. “I’ll… I’ll call the paper then, and make them print an apology.”

“You don’t…”

“Yes, I do.” Lucy’s voice was firm, and a shiver went down Flynn’s spine. “They made a completely baseless accusation, and it’s not okay. Label me an eligible bachelorette if they want, but saying that we’re probably dating? Not cool. If they still want exclusive interviews with me, they’re going to shape up.”

Flynn felt like a tight hot spring was coiling in his stomach. “I appreciate that.”

“It’s the least I can do, Flynn, really.” Lucy set down the cup of coffee. “But you were—if you weren’t upset over the dating thing—you just up and left.”

Ah, shit. He’d been hoping the dating thing to distract her.

“You can talk to me,” Lucy said, her voice soft. “Flynn, what is it?”

Flynn swallowed. “I’m the reason 3XK was never caught four years ago.”

“What?”

He shoved his hair back from his face. “Four years ago was when… when…”

“When they were taken from you,” Lucy whispered.

Flynn felt like he was choking. “I—I was taken off the case. All my cases. You know… you heard how I was. I could barely function. Wyatt was with me twenty-four seven to make sure I didn’t throw myself out a window. Other detectives were given my case, including that one.”

“Then how on earth is it your fault?” Lucy laid a hand on his arm. “Flynn, you weren’t the one who failed to catch him. The detective in charge of the case was.”

“And that detective was me.” Flynn couldn’t look her in the eye. He stared down at her hand on his arm, instead. Her small, pale hand, like a cat’s paw, delicate and yet, so strong. How was she so strong? And hiding it under all these layers of false bravado? “I should have kept my wits, I shouldn’t have abandoned my job like that, my cases, the people depending on me to bring justice for those they loved.”

“You were grieving, Flynn. You were human. It’s not a crime.”

“So are the parents of those girls.” His voice came out harsh. “If it was Amy, if she was—would you forgive me? For breaking down and leaving the case?”

Lucy squeezed his arm. He watched her fingers flexing. “Yes. Because if you had stayed on the case, you wouldn’t have been able to do a good job. The job that I know you can do. You would’ve been unfocused, hurting, you wouldn’t have been able to objectively look at facts. But now, you can.” Her thumb rubbed back and forth along his arm, almost as if she wasn’t aware she was doing it. “Nobody’s blaming you for this except yourself, Flynn.”

He finally managed to look up at her. “I wish that were true.”

* * *

Denise was going over paperwork when one of the officers poked her head in. “Captain? There’s someone here to see you and Det. Flynn. A…” And here the voice got sympathetic. “…someone by the name of Mr. Miller?”

Ah.

Denise stood up. “Bring him in here, and tell Flynn to come, too.”

Flynn arrived first. “What is it?”

The case hadn’t been easy for any of them, even before Flynn had lost his family and gone off the deep end. The worst part of cases like these was dealing with the grieving family. The Millers had been no exception.

Denise took a deep breath. “Aaron Miller is here.”

Flynn exhaled slowly, his hands on his hips. “Shit.”

“We have to be honest with him.”

“I know, I know.” Flynn shook his head, as if clearing the cobwebs. “I promised him, Denise…”

“We both did.”

“I told him I’d get justice for his girl, and then…”

“You lost your family. Nobody could blame you.”

“Well, you should have.”

Denise winced.

“I lost my mind,” Flynn said, his voice rough and quiet. Denise had known the man for a decade now, and she could count the times Flynn had apologized to her on one hand. “I was out of control. I couldn’t figure out who killed my wife, my little girl, so I went after him and… fuck. I can’t do this.”

He started for the door. “Sit. Down,” Denise snapped.

She knew it was probably cruel of her, or unfair, but that tone was the only thing that got Flynn to halt and listen to her. She tried to use that tone judiciously.

Flynn paused, turned, and glared at her. “I will sit,” he informed her, “but only because you stuck your neck out for me.”

Denise raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know that they wanted me kicked off the force.” Flynn sat down, looking up at her. “You kept me on.”

“Wasn’t easy, with your one-man crusade. Everyone thought you’d shoot the first real suspect we had.” Denise paused. Those had been dark times. Flynn was hurting, everyone was on edge, Rufus had been brand spanking new, Olivia’d been struggling in school—home or at work, everything had been falling apart around her.

“You can handle this,” she told Flynn. “The Millers don’t blame you, and neither should any of the other parents. You didn’t kill their daughters. I know it feels like we did, I know it feels like our fault. But we did not take those girls from them. All we can do is try and provide justice.”

Flynn snorted. “Justice. You ever feel like we’re living a lie about that?”

Denise shrugged. “All the time.” She paused. Maybe this wasn’t the best time, but they were on the subject, and… “I wasn’t the one who stuck my neck out for you.”

Flynn looked up at her.

“I was ready to make you take an extended leave. I thought you needed to be off the force permanently. It was… it was Wyatt who convinced me to let you stay on. He came in here raising hell.” Denise snorted a little at the memory. “He wouldn’t let up like some kind of yappy dog.”

“Oh trust me, I know the feeling,” Flynn grumbled without heat.

“He was the one who convinced me to let you stay on, to talk to my superiors. He and Jess got transferred here and promised to babysit you.” Denise planted her hands on the desk behind her.

“Any particular reason why you’re telling me this now?”

“Because you’re sitting there having faith in me that I don’t deserve.”

Flynn leaned back in the chair, drumming his fingers on the arm of it. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“No, it’s true. I had no faith in you, and I’m sorry for it. You pulled yourself out.”

“I didn’t pull myself out, Denise. I just channeled it into actually being productive.” Flynn’s eyes were dark as he stared up at her, snake eyes, and Denise was reminded all over again that no matter how much she had come to respect Flynn, appreciate him, she would never understand him—just as he would never understand her. For all its issues, she believed in law and order, and she would adjust the system, because if they didn’t have some kind of system then what was left?

But Flynn—Flynn was barely controlled chaos. Denise worked within the system. Flynn used it, twisted it, had it as a tool in his inventory. Flynn was a tightly-leashed hurricane.

“You were stronger than I gave you credit for being.”

“More like Wyatt was more stubborn than any of us gave him credit for being.”

Denise raised an eyebrow. “I think you would’ve done it eventually. On your own. You’re stronger than I gave you credit for.”

Flynn shrugged, as if to say that he wasn’t so sure about that. Denise wasn’t sure if it was partially her fault that Flynn had such a low opinion of himself, but she supposed that it was about time that she was more open about her appreciation.

At least Flynn had Wyatt and Lucy. Both men would hate to admit it, but Denise wasn’t keeping that writer on the team just for Lucy’s helpful observations. She was good for them. She made Flynn laugh, for one thing, and Denise hadn’t seen Flynn laugh in years.

Denise opened her mouth to say something—she wasn’t sure what, but it just felt like she should speak, should offer up more—but the door opened again and Aaron Miller walked in.

The man looked like he had aged ten years instead of four. Denise’s heart ached for him. If anything happened to her daughter Olivia, or to her son Mark for that matter, she would have torn the world apart, methodically and precisely, until she found the person responsible.

“Is it true?” Mr. Miller said, his voice raspy. “The… the man who did this to… he’s back?”

Flynn stood up. “Please, Aaron, sit. I’ll get you some water.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” Mr. Miller sat in the chair but waved away Flynn’s aborted attempt to get him water.

“How’s Therese?” Flynn asked, referring to Mrs. Miller.

Mr. Miller grimaced. “We divorced, a couple years ago. Losing a child… sometimes it brings you closer together, sometimes it breaks you. We still talk now and then. It was just… hard.”

He looked up at the two of them. “Will you get him, this time?”

Denise locked eyes with Flynn. In this, at least, they were the same. They might burn differently, but they still burned. “We’ll do whatever we can,” Flynn said, his eyes on Denise.

She gave him a slight nod. Whatever they could. This bastard was going down.

* * *

Lucy leaned over Wyatt’s shoulder, watching him go through the files. “There has to be something that we’re missing,” he said. “Nobody involved in the diamond smuggling matches the description given by the squatter, and all of them have alibis for the night of the murder.”

“Somebody knew about the snakes coming in,” Lucy pointed out. “They had to have.”

They both paused as Denise called Flynn into her office. “How’s he doing?” Lucy whispered.

“Not really sleeping,” Wyatt admitted. “Trying to catch a break in the case.”

She braced her hand on Wyatt’s back to focus in on the papers. “Well, they can’t have been the only people who knew about this. There’s always a leak or someone who figures it out. Secrets can’t be held forever.”

Wyatt hummed thoughtfully, but she felt him twitch underneath her in a nervous sort of way. Lucy wondered if he was thinking about his own secrets, whatever those might be. Other than the obvious one. “Well, they had to pass through the airport here, maybe someone thought something odd about the snakes when they checked them through?”

That niggling thought that had been in the back of her mind at the pet shop sprang to life, like a plant given sunlight. “Oh, holy shit! Wyatt!”

She looked up, but someone else was entering the office where Denise and Flynn were. “Once he’s finished—Wyatt, I know who the third man is!”

“What!?”

Lucy grinned. “Remember when we told the travel agent’s next of kin that he was dead? Where did his brother-in-law work?”

“Oh my God.” Wyatt shook his head. “Kill his wife’s brother? That’s cold, Lucy.”

“For millions of dollars in diamonds, though… people will do insane things for money. Especially with how the economy is now.”

Flynn exited the room, looking haggard. “Please tell me we have something.”

Lucy peered around him, staring at the man sitting with Denise. The man was accepting some offered tissues. “We found the third man, if that helps?”

Flynn nodded. “Let’s get him, then.”

“We get to tell a woman that her husband killed her brother,” Wyatt muttered. “This is gonna be fun.”

* * *

They were just coming back from arresting their diamond thief to find Rufus and Jess grabbing their things. “Got a lead,” Jess said shortly.

Wyatt swore violently. Flynn, Lucy noticed, didn’t even bother with that.

“And I found something,” Rufus said. “I went back through the paperwork, and the woman who called in the cable guy? Guess what her name was.”

Lucy felt a horrible, tight suspicion in her stomach. “Linda Russo.”

Rufus nodded. “Got it in one.”

“That was why he killed her in the alley,” Wyatt said. “Not in her home. He knew she’d recognize him, he knew she wouldn’t let him inside.”

“What’s the lead?” Flynn asked.

“We got a print off that name tag,” Jess said. “Repeat offender, just got out of prison after he was arrested for assaulting a man at a bar. Marcus Gates. And get this, he works at a costume supply store.”

“That supplies things like cable guy outfits,” Lucy said. “For theatre and film sets.”

Jess nodded.

“Jess, Rufus, go try and find the guy,” Flynn said. “Wyatt, I want you to track down all known associates—”

“Step ahead of you, boss,” Rufus said. “Gates was in and out of foster homes growing up but he was apparently friends with his cellmate in prison. Could be the guy knows something.”

“Then Wyatt and I will go and talk to him.” Flynn glanced at Lucy. “You can come, if you want.”

“Of course.” She wasn’t going to leave them, not now when Flynn was so close to snapping in two like a dry twig she could hear it happening.

“His name is Nicholas Keynes, first time drug offender,” Flynn said, grabbing the file from Rufus. “Let’s go talk to him.”

* * *

Keynes was not eager to talk. He was a small, average looking guy, dark hair, dark eyes, the sort that was easily glanced at and forgotten. Flynn was surprised the guy had gotten through prison without getting the shit beat out of him.

That, Keynes said, was thanks to Gates.

“Look,” he whispered, leaning in. “I’m not talking to you guys, okay? Gates was king here. He ruled this fucking place. He liked me, so he looked out for me. But if he finds out that I snitched on him I’m dead. Same with my girlfriend, Donna. He’s out and she’ll have no idea he’s coming for her.”

“We can protect Donna,” Wyatt said. “We can protect you.”

Flynn eyed Keynes up and down. The guy was smarter than he wanted people to think. Flynn recognized the type. They weren’t intimidating physically so they hid their smarts, got people to underestimate them, so they could have some kind of advantage. “I know that you know something,” he warned. “So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to sit here. And either you can tell us what you know, and we’ll protect you, or we’ll just hang out for an hour or so, and then we’ll leave, and everyone will think that you talked to us anyway.”

Wyatt and Lucy both turned and stared at him. He couldn’t quite read the look in their eyes—if it was fear or disgust or disappointment. He knew he was breaking rules right now, skirting that dark edge but fuck, he didn’t care, he didn’t _care_. He had to stop this killer. He had made a promise.

Keynes’ gaze darted between the three of them, finding no sympathy there. “I… well… Gates did say something. About how he had to get into prison, so he started the bar fight on purpose. His brother didn’t like it, they used to argue about it, but it was really important to Gates. He never said why he had to get in here, just that he had to lie low and this was the best place.”

Lucy got out her notebook and began to scribble.

“Gates didn’t have a brother,” Flynn pointed out.

“Foster brother,” Keynes corrected. “You could ask that guy about Gates, he’ll know more. His name’s Paul.”

Wyatt got out his phone, texting Jess to look into it once they got Gates into custody.

“I’m sure some more time will jog your memory,” Flynn said. “After all, it’ll take a bit to set up witness protection for you.”

Keynes didn’t look happy about it, but he kept talking. Lucy, meanwhile, kept scribbling, not missing a word, Wyatt a warm, solid line next to him.

He might be using less-than-honorable methods, but at least he wasn’t alone.

* * *

Jess walked up to the apartment of Paul Heidecker, the man who had been stalking Linda Russo from work. “I knew there was something up with that asshole,” she said, ringing the doorbell.

“Yeah, but we can’t do anything without evidence.”

“Oh, really?” Jess looked at him innocently. “I had no idea, Rufus, please, tell me more.”

There was no answer from the door. Jess rang the doorbell again.

Rufus nudged her. “Jess, look.” He pointed downward.

Newspapers were built up.

Someone emerged from the apartment next door. “Hey, excuse me? Ma’am?”

The woman looked up, her small chihuahua yapping at them. “Yes?”

“Sorry.” Jess put on her most charming smile. She’d been told that she could be very charming.

Okay, so Amy had told her that. What of it?

“We were wondering—did you know anything about where your neighbor is? His name is Paul? Tall, kind of skinny?”

“Oh, that poor man.” The neighbor looked sympathetic. “He was taken to the hospital just a couple of days ago, some kind of surgery. His brother stopped by, seemed very upset—talked about cutting it close.”

Rufus was already pulling out his phone to do some research. “Thanks so much,” Jess said, smiling again.

“He needed a bypass surgery for his heart,” Rufus whispered, phone to his ear as they walked away. In a normal voice he said, “Yes, thank you, could you tell me—it sounds like a real close call, was he only just cleared for it? Oh? What about insurance? Uh-huh? Okay, thank you.”

Rufus hung up. “Apparently Heidecker only just got the money to pay for the surgery.”

“Yay for the American healthcare system,” Jess muttered.

“Yeah, get this—his brother paid for it.”

“So…” Jess shook her head. “Gates threatens not to pay for his brother’s surgery until Heidecker stalked Linda Russo for him, since Gates couldn’t get too close to her?”

“Looks like it.” Rufus pocketed his phone. “Let’s see if he’ll agree to testify.”

* * *

Lucy sat in Flynn’s chair again, frowning at the official report Rufus had filed on their interview with Paul Heidecker.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Wyatt asked. He looked like he’d aged ten years in just a day, his face haggard and pale, circles under his eyes. Lucy knew it was because of Flynn. They’d gotten Keynes settled into a motel with a uniformed guard to keep an eye on him, but Gates was in the wind. After interviewing him, they couldn’t hold him—a single fingerprint on a name tag from a job where he handled the costumes all day wasn’t really a case, and Paul wasn’t incriminating his brother.

Speaking of Flynn, the man himself was pacing up and down like a caged tiger. He passed by the desk again, glaring into the middle distance.

She tapped the paper. “Rufus notes here that there was a huge bouquet of flowers by Paul’s bedside. Unsigned.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, Paul had no friends. That was why he said he stalked Linda, he wanted a friend.”

“We know that’s a lie now.”

“Yes, but—he’s also refusing to incriminate Gates. I don’t… I don’t know, it just seems like they’re close.” Lucy shrugged.

Wyatt sighed. “Not all cases can fall together like a neat puzzle piece, Lucy. We can’t always find diamonds in snakes.”

She snorted to try and hide her smile, but only halfway succeeded. “Yeah, well…”

Denise opened the door to her office. “Officers say Gates is on the move.” They’d been keeping an eye on him ever since they’d released him. “But lost track of him, he snuck out the back of his apartment.”

Flynn froze. “Donna,” he said. “Keynes’ girlfriend, she’s exactly Gates’ type, Keynes was scared we’d go after her—”

“And Gates will know Keynes was taken out of prison,” Wyatt finished. “Shit.”

He leapt to his feet, and Lucy did too, grabbing her coat to run after the men, dashing past Denise.

“Lucy,” Denise said quietly.

Lucy paused.

Denise shook her head minutely. “Not this time. Stay here.”

* * *

Keynes was already packing when Rufus and Wyatt got there. He glanced up as they entered, going tense, his shoulders relaxing only when he registered who they were. “Everything good?”

“We managed to get to Donna,” Rufus said. “She’s safe.”

“And—and Gates?”

“In custody,” Rufus replied.

“Well thank God for that.” Keynes continued packing.

…why was he already packing?

How could he know that they’d get Gates? Unless he didn’t know and just planned to cut and run anyway. Why would he cut and run?

Why didn’t he ask about Donna?

If Flynn was in danger, if Flynn was targeted by a fucking serial killer, Wyatt wouldn’t give a damn about anything except what happened, and why, and when he could see him. Hell, Lucy, too, and that was a can of worms he was going to very determinedly not think about. Even Jess, and he wasn’t in love with her anymore. She was his best friend.

“Don’t you want to know what happened with Donna?” Wyatt asked.

“What?” Keynes paused, looking up at him.

“Donna. Your girlfriend.”

Rufus glanced over.

“Don’t you want to know what happened to her? Why she’s safe? Unless…” The tumblers were clicking into place. “Unless she was supposed to die. And that’s why Gates didn’t get the money for his foster brother’s surgery until now, because it wasn’t his money, it was yours, and you wouldn’t give it to him until after he’d done your dirty work. It was you all along, you’re the real Triple Killer.”

Keynes looked at Rufus. “What is—what is he saying?” he asked.

Rufus sighed. “Look, Wyatt…”

Keynes threw his duffel bag at Wyatt’s face.

Wyatt tried to bat the bag away and get his gun out, but by then Keynes had gotten the jump on Rufus, using the motel chair to smash Rufus’s head.

Rufus went down like a sack of bricks, hitting his head hard on the table. “Rufus!” Wyatt yelled. Fuck, fuck, was that a concussion? Was Rufus okay?

Keynes lunged for Wyatt, grabbing his gun. They scuffled, but Wyatt was… well, he wasn’t the best at hand-to-hand combat, as Flynn could attest. Flynn had been training Wyatt, sparring with him, but Wyatt was still far from the best.

And Keynes, apparently, had turned into a slippery little fucker in prison, fighting for his life.

He yanked the gun away, pointing it right at Wyatt. “Guilty as charged.”

Wyatt slowly put his hands up.

* * *

Wyatt really hated being tied to chairs. He had decided this. It was definitely something he did not like.

Especially when the person doing the tying up was an asshole and a serial killer.

“I gotta say, I’m surprised that you of all people figured it out,” Nicholas said. “You’re clearly the dullest knife in the drawer over there. I was sure a few times there that Lucy would hit the nail on the head. She’s a bright thing, pity she’s not my type. Flynn, now, he’s the intimidating sort, unless he’s all looks?” Nicholas paused. “Oh, I hit a nerve there, didn’t I?”

Wyatt realized he was growling and made himself stop. “You think you’re so goddamn special, don’t you? Newsflash, dickhead, you’re the opposite of special. You’re so fucking common that you’re boring.”

“You think you know me?” Nicholas hissed. His face contorted, and Wyatt wished like anything that he could punch the guy right now. “You think you could possibly ever—”

“Understand your tortured soul, the sufferings of society, blah de fucking blah, yeah, Joker, we get it.”

Nicholas looked like he was actively swallowing down balls of rage in his throat. “All right then, you ignorant little hick, tell me, what helped you figure me out? Hmm? What makes me so very boring to you?”

“Oh, it’s simple,” Wyatt replied. “I know your story. It was mine. Beautiful mom, right? Blonde, I’m guessing? Looked like an angel. To a little kid’s mind, anyway. But she never wanted you, did she? She didn’t care about you. And then you were… young, probably not as young as I was, but she died, didn’t she? Disappeared suddenly. Abandoned you. You went into foster care, me, I had my old man, but either way, we were beaten within an inch of our lives, weren’t we, Nicholas?”

He had to keep him entranced, keep him talking, and pray that Flynn and Lucy would figure out what had happened.

“Now, my father, he would drag me out in the middle of the night. Make me drive his beat up old Chevy truck around. He’d drive it too, after he’d been drinking in the passenger seat, and he’d tear it up like he was the Devil himself. Terrified me. I was waiting for the day we ended up wrapped around a tree. And then when the car broke down he’d make me fix it. We couldn’t go home until I had that car purring again.

“So you hate your mother. Just like I hated mine. You hate her for abandoning you, but you always leave your victims peaceful because that’s the fucking kicker, isn’t it? In spite of all the hate, you also still love her. Even if you wish like hell that you didn’t.” Wyatt shrugged. “You’re really not all that special, Nicholas. You’re just another woman-hating white man with entitlement issues and no fucking compassion. All violence and no substance.”

Nicholas smirked, crouching down in front of Wyatt. “And what about you?” he asked. “You think that you’re somehow better than I am? You spend all your time solving cases, fixing what’s broken, as if it’ll fix what’s broken inside of you. Because you are broken, aren’t you Wyatt?” His smile grew. “You’re wrong inside, just like me. Well, not exactly like me. But still wrong inside. Maybe it’s because your dad beat you, and your mom left you, and so now you’re all messed up. What’s the opposite of an Oedipus complex?”

Wyatt glared. “What the fuck are you talking about.”

Nicholas snorted. “Oh, please. Like nobody can see you staring at him. Flynn. You’ve got so many perverted little fantasies about him, it’s disgusting.”

Wyatt could feel his face, his whole body, heating up in shame and he knew it was stupid, that what Nicholas was saying was wrong, but he also could feel that part of him that still felt ashamed about wanting Flynn rising up, threatening to choke him.

“You can say whatever you want to me.” Nicholas shrugged. “We both know you’re really saying it to yourself.”

He stood up. “You have no idea how tempting it is to put a bullet through your skull right now. Garcia Flynn loses one more person he cares about, might make him think twice about trying to go after me again. I’ll bet his screams will be delicious.”

Wyatt felt like he was vibrating, shaking apart with equal measures of rage and shame. The safety was off the gun and Nicholas was pointing it right at him, finger on the trigger. One twitch and Wyatt’s brains would be all over the wall and he would’ve failed himself, failed Flynn, an ignoble end to a shitty, pathetic life.

Nicholas lowered the gun. “But I think that would be too easy. I have to punish both of you. And you’re not punished when you’re dead. You’re just dead.”

“How philosophical.”

He did not see the pistol whip coming, to be honest. Fuck that hurt. He was definitely gonna have a fat lip from that.

“You want to act like I’m pathetic? Fine. Go ahead. Look down your nose at me.” Nicholas’s face was twisted in fury, looking almost like it was made of candle wax that was starting to melt. “But you and me? We’re the same, Wyatt. You’re just as pathetic, just as twisted up, just as _broken_ as I am. And—”

Wyatt’s phone rang.

“It would be suspicious if I didn’t answer that,” he said, trying to talk around the pain in his jaw.

Nicholas pulled the phone out. _Jess_, the caller ID read.

“You say one wrong word,” Nicholas promised in a low whisper, “and I’ll shoot him.” He pointed his gun at Rufus, still lying prone and unconscious on the carpet.

Wyatt swallowed, nodding.

Nicholas hit the _talk _button.

“Hello?” Wyatt said.

“Hey, we were just wondering where you and Rufus were, we’re all at the Lifeboat for drinks, you want to join?”

“Uh, I don’t know, I’m feeling kind of beat. Might just go back to the apartment. Rufus said he had laundry to do or something, I think.”

“Okay then. You might want to let Flynn know, I think he’s worried about you.”

“He’s always worried about me, it’s like he thinks I’m going to walk into an open manhole and break both my legs and die.”

“I’ve known you for thirty years, Wyatt, that’s not a wrong assumption for him to make.”

“Very funny.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Wyatt,” Jess said.

He couldn’t stand it. If—if something went wrong, and Nicholas killed him, then… fuck it. Jess wasn’t his wife anymore but she was still, in some ways, his best friend.

And maybe, just maybe, if he did this, she’d hear what he couldn’t say.

“…Wyatt?” Jess repeated.

“I love you,” Wyatt said.

Nicholas hung up. “I don’t think there’s anything more to say, really.”

* * *

Flynn tapped the desk. “Something’s wrong.”

Lucy looked over at him. She’d been tying and untying and then re-tying the sash on her coat for the last five minutes, as if it was the excuse she needed to linger. “He and Rufus couldn’t have…”

“They wouldn’t go anywhere, not without calling us.”

Something wasn’t right, not about any of this. It was a niggling, worming, squirming feeling at the back of his brain.

“Guys.”

Jess was walking up, her face tight, and oh—Flynn knew that face. He first knew Jessica Logan as the woman who patiently dealt with Wyatt’s shit, the woman who put up with relocating, and who quietly handled the entire divorce procedure on her own while Wyatt was pulling Flynn out of seedy bars and up off the floor of the apartment in the wake of Lorena and Iris’s death. Flynn lost his family but Jess lost her husband, and maybe it was a long time coming but they moved to New York to save their marriage, not end it, and Flynn would always be grateful to Jess for accepting this entire damn mess with ease and not kicking up the fuss she had every right to kick up.

Point was, Flynn didn’t get see Jess laugh, or relax, until he’d known her for well over a year. He was well acquainted Jess’s forms of unhappiness. And this was definitely her tight, worried face that told him something was very, very wrong.

“Something’s wrong with Wyatt,” Jess said. “And I mean—I mean _wrong_.”

“What do you mean?” Lucy’s voice wobbled, cracked, just a little.

“I just called him, asked where he was—and he told me he loved me and hung up.”

Lucy stared. “Wait, he’s still in l—”

“No, he’s not, but we still—we still love each other, we just never say it, he hasn’t said it in years, so if he did…”

It was true. Wyatt wasn’t really one for words. In their entire friendship, Flynn had never actually heard Wyatt say that he loved Flynn. Didn’t mean that he didn’t say it in all the ways he looked out for Flynn. Flynn trusted in their friendship.

Of course, he’d never said it back to Wyatt, but that was because it would be laden down with too many implications, too many unspoken truths.

He grabbed his badge and his gun. “We’re going to the motel,” he said. He felt a sick, swooping sensation in his stomach, not unlike the one he’d felt when he’d gotten the call about Lorena and Iris.

_Please, God, I know I only talk to you to berate you but please, please—_

Wyatt was a little shit who used to be a misogynistic homophobic idiot with internalized toxic masculinity and a shit-ton of parental issues. But he got better. He let Flynn and Jess drag him to therapy (after they cajoled Denise into making it a professional order and threaten to fire Wyatt if he didn’t go), he picked Flynn up after every single bad night Flynn had, he literally kept Flynn alive that first year. Lucy’s books and Wyatt’s rough, awkward care. Those were what saved him.

He couldn’t lose another person he loved. Not after last time. It would break him.

The motel was eerily silent when they arrived. Lucy insisted on coming along, riding in the backseat with her lips pressed so tightly together they were white. She tore out of the car with Flynn but respectively kept behind him as he hurried up the steps to Keynes’ motel room.

“Detective Logan! Detective Carlin! Keynes!”

There was no answer as he rushed up. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_—

Flynn kicked the door down. “Wyatt!”

The man in question was tied to a goddamn chair. Rufus was on the ground a few feet away, out cold. Fuck, someone had done a number on him. On Wyatt, too, judging by the horrendous bruise forming on Wyatt’s face.

Flynn wanted to find Keynes—it had to be him, who else could it be—and rip his jaw apart for doing that to Wyatt.

“He’s gone,” Wyatt said, self-loathing lacing his tone.

Flynn yanked Wyatt into a hug before even untying him. “Thank God you’re all right.”

“How’d you know to find me?”

“Jess found us. She said that you told her you loved her and she figured that something must be terribly wrong.”

Wyatt gave a tired smirk. “I figured she would.”

Flynn felt like his heart wasn’t even in his fucking chest anymore. He hugged Wyatt again, and felt Wyatt slump against him, Wyatt’s head resting against Flynn’s shoulder. “You’re safe,” he whispered, and he knew that Wyatt would hate for him to say that loudly enough that anyone else could hear, but since he whispered it, it was all right.

They stayed like that, frozen, until Flynn’s knees started to go numb and Wyatt mumbled, “Hey, this is real nice and all, but if you wouldn’t mind untying me sometime this century…”

Ah. Right. He should get on that.

* * *

Lucy got both of them coffee as the men sat by the side of the motel pool. CSU was working on the motel room, getting samples, while paramedics were helping out Rufus. Wyatt had called Jess and told her he was all right, and then called Captain Christopher and told her that he was all right, and now he and Flynn were just looking into the distance with the kind of thousand-yard stare in their eyes that scared Lucy a bit.

“Hey.” She handed them each a coffee. “Blink for me before your eyes fall out of your heads.”

Flynn snorted. He looked like he was having to stop himself from crushing the coffee cup in his hand. “Thanks, Lucy.”

She sat down on Wyatt’s other side. Flynn had been glued to Wyatt since they’d rescued him, even when reaching out to squeeze Rufus’s arm once Rufus woke up. Wyatt, surprisingly, didn’t seem to notice. Lucy would’ve thought… well.

It had been a few weeks since she had broken the news about Lorena and Iris’s deaths to Wyatt and Flynn. Weeks since Wyatt had dragged her out into the hall and told her she’d fucked up. Weeks since she’d seen the angry, devastating, _broken _look on Wyatt’s face and realized what it meant, and saw him realize that she’d realized, and a moment of terrible understanding had passed between them.

She hadn’t said anything about it since. Neither had Wyatt. She felt… well, she’d done enough overstepping.

The point was, Wyatt didn’t even seem to be aware of Flynn’s hovering. He just sat there, idly sipping at the coffee, looking like he was contemplating pitching forward and drowning himself in the pool.

Curiosity got the better of her. “Why did he let you live?”

“To punish me. Because he said we’re alike and he wants me to feel like a failure.” Wyatt sipped his coffee. “Now he’ll kill again. Because I failed.”

“You didn’t fail,” Lucy said. “Hey, you didn’t.”

“I failed.” Flynn’s voice was bitterness itself. “It was my case and twice now I’ve let him get the slip on me. You almost died because of me.” He paused. “You might not appreciate it, Wyatt, but I think your smartassing him saved you. You pissed him off enough he decided letting you live was a worse punishment than killing you.”

“Gee, I feel great now.” Wyatt finished off his coffee and crumpled the cup up, tossing it to the side. Lucy picked it up and threw it away in the trash can. “He said we were the same. That we were both… sick inside.”

Flynn stared at him, starting a little. “Why would he say that?”

Lucy knew. She saw it in the way Wyatt suddenly couldn’t look Flynn in the eye. “Because that’s what psychopaths do,” she said quickly. “They try to make you think you’re like them, to build sympathy, to get you to question yourself and your morality.”

Flynn nodded, and Wyatt shot Lucy a grateful look. Lucy reached out, cautiously taking his hand in hers, squeezing.

Wyatt squeezed back.

“We’ll get him,” she promised—promised both of them. “This isn’t the end.”

Flynn stood up fast enough that Lucy got whiplash looking up at him. “You’re damn right it isn’t,” he snarled. He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I’m going to check with CSU.”

“What do we do?” Wyatt asked, watching him.

Lucy took a deep breath. Kept holding his hand. “We just… we be there. We be there, and we catch him if he falls.”

* * *

Rufus winced as the paramedic touched up his head. “I’m fine, really, you can stop poking at me with that thing.” He’d called Mom, to tell her he would be home late again.

Yeah, he still lived with his mom. Who else was going to look after her and Kevin? Kid was barely into high school and he needed someone to watch his back. Not because Kevin was a bad kid but because everyone in the world would assume he was, just because of what he looked like, just like they had with Rufus.

It was why Rufus had gone into the police. Because fuck it, he was going to make sure that nobody died like his dad did, he was going to make sure that his fellow cops were held responsible, and he was going to try to change what he could.

Mom sometimes called him too much of an optimist but he supposed he’d rather be too much of an optimist than lose out on hope and become bitter.

A car rolled up and someone got out—he caught sight of a flash of dark hair and his heart soared stupidly.

“Rufus!?”

Jiya rushed over to him, shoving another cop out of the way. “Jess told me—oh my God, are you okay?”

“Just peachy, if you ignore the egg on my forehead.” He was going to be on damn desk duty for weeks until the swelling went down, he just knew it.

Jiya took his hands in hers, squeezing. “You scared the shit out of me, Rufus, fuck.”

His heart was pounding way faster than it had when Keynes had turned on them. “I’m sorry?” he offered. “Next time I’ll read the mind of the witness we’re protecting so that I’ll realize sooner he’s actually the deranged serial killer we’re looking for. Seriously, though, it’s just a bump on the head, I’m gonna be fine. Wyatt had it worse, I think guy’s all mopey…”

Jiya gave an odd kind of laugh, then shook her head. “You’re an absolute fucking moron, Rufus Carlin.”

Then she leaned in and kissed him.

Rufus was pretty sure this was how computers felt when they got a glitch and had to shut down. _Error 404. Page not found. Blue screen._

Jiya pulled back, taking his face in her hands. God, the bump on the head was definitely worth it for this. “You want me to drive you home? We could… get burgers or something on the way?”

What he planned to say was _I’ll go dumpster diving so long as it’s with you_. What came out was, “You want to take me out on a date? Even with how awful the last one went?”

Jiya stared at him for a second. “You seriously are still hanging onto that?”

“Um, yeah, seeing as I made an idiot of myself…”

“Rufus, that was five years ago. Things change! People change! You’re not an idiot! And I l…iiiike you and want to try dating you again, okay? Can we try that?”

Rufus grinned at her. Fuck, he couldn’t help it. “I liiiiiiiiiike you too, Jiya, very eloquent of you there…”

“Shut up.” Her actions belied her tone as she kissed him again. “Shut up, shut up, shut up…”

Rufus wrapped his arms around her. Holy shit, he had a crazed serial killer to thank for this, he was never living this down.

But hey, for Jiya? Worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While in television shows you see the characters solving one case per episode and focusing solely on that case, in real life, detectives will be handling several cases at once—this is the format I’m going with for this series, but I couldn’t resist explaining why like the nerd I am.
> 
> This chapter's cases are based on the Castle episodes The Third Man (2x14) and 3xK (3x06).


	3. Chapter 3

Things had been a little more… ...interesting, since the 3XK case. Twice, now, Lucy had seen Flynn and Wyatt, especially the former, in painfully vulnerable situations. Cases that shot straight through the armor to the heart of who they were and where they were weak. The last couple of weeks had felt like they didn’t know what to do with one another. Lucy was being unusually subdued, which Flynn hated. Wyatt was being unusually raucous and loud, which he also hated. Usually Wyatt and Lucy both tended to metaphorically poke at Flynn in a way that screamed ‘pay attention to me’ but now, there was a careful distance.

He didn’t know whether to confront them both about it or if it would just lead to picking at an open wound.

Especially Wyatt. Keynes had said something to Wyatt while they were alone, something that had Wyatt skittering away from touch, from everyone, like Wyatt felt... dirty, or something.

Flynn woke up two minutes before his alarm, as usual, and wandered out into the living area to find Wyatt passed out on the couch, again. There were circles under his eyes and his stubble was worse than usual. On the table in front of him were several empty bottles of soda—a sign that Wyatt had wanted to binge drink and was trying to abstain.

Wyatt had never... they’d never gone to a meeting, exactly. But he’d stopped drinking nearly as much while taking care of Flynn and it was just sort of an understanding that Wyatt didn’t have more than two beers at a time. Maybe he should drag Wyatt to a meeting, if he was self-medicating with fucking Pepsi, of all things.

Flynn cleaned up the empty bottles and then started up the coffee maker. The sound of rattling cups woke Wyatt, who started awake, blinking wildly and then squinting like he wasn’t sold on the whole sunlight thing.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he drawled, bringing Wyatt his coffee and a bagel. Once, he would have ruffled Wyatt’s hair as he did it, but ever since Keynes—fucking Keynes—Wyatt would flinch away.

He wanted to ask... but Wyatt would have said something, if that, if anything like that had happened, wouldn’t he?

Wyatt groaned, sipping the coffee. “I hate existence.”

“Don’t we all.”

Flynn’s phone rang. “Looks like we got a case.”

Wyatt put his face in his hands. “Why do murderers have to be morning people?”

“Stop being a diva and eat your fucking carbs, Logan.”

The body was one of the more interesting they’d found—a woman hanging by a pair of leather handcuffs, naked, covered in honey, and in the middle of a jungle gym in Central Park.

“The press is gonna have a field day with this,” Jess predicted dryly.

Lucy pointed at the body. “If I was reading this in a book I’d say it was a little over the top.”

“Funny.” Flynn nodded at Jiya, who was examining the body. “What do you have for me?”

“Looks like she was strangled,” Jiya said. “I’ll have to do an autopsy to make sure, but I don’t think she was solely drowned in the honey. See these marks around her neck? Someone was squeezing as they held her down.”

“And the rest of this?”

Jiya eyed the handcuffs. “Hard to tell. Could be a fetish.”

They just got finished with one serial killer—a serial killer who had taunted Wyatt, tied him up, nearly killed Rufus, and then had gotten away. Flynn wasn’t too keen to jump into another case like that so soon.

“Are these handcuffs hers?” Lucy asked, climbing up onto the bars of the jungle gym.

“Careful, Lucy, Jesus,” Wyatt grumbled, handing her gloves.

“Why do you ask?” Flynn put his hands on Lucy’s legs to hold her steady as she let go of the bars to put on the gloves and examine the handcuffs.

“These are high-quality,” Lucy explained. “Look at this. Genuine leather, and the lining’s very good fake fur. None of that cliché fuzzy pink stuff. And these clasps… she definitely got these at someplace high end.”

Flynn felt his stomach doing an odd swoop. “How do you know that?”

Lucy glanced down at him, a smile teasing up the corners of her mouth. “I know lots of things.”

Um. Well then.

* * *

The victim, it seemed, was a Jennifer Coran, and she was doing her PhD in sociology on BDSM relationships. Interviewing her two fellow students—and competitors for a prestigious fellowship—was easy enough. Interviewing the BDSM mistress she’d been interviewing, a Mistress Venom, was less so.

“This club’s good,” Jess said, her tone frustrated. “I can’t get in, and trust me, I’m trying.”

“I don’t want to know how you’re trying, do I?” Wyatt asked.

Jess winked at him.

“Then we’ll just have to send someone in undercover,” Lucy said, sounding far too excited about the whole thing.

Wyatt was personally wondering how Lucy knew that stuff about the handcuffs Jennifer had been wearing, and if the slight flush to Flynn’s face when he’d asked her was anything to go by, Flynn was wondering the same thing. Not that Wyatt was going to ask. He’d been trying to—to distance himself from Flynn ever since Keynes. If he was so obvious that a random serial killer could figure out his feelings for Flynn, and all this right after Lucy had figured it out, well, the cat was closer to clawing its way out of the bag than Wyatt had thought. He had to keep it tucked away. He wouldn’t betray Flynn’s trust in him by—by revealing that.

“What?” Rufus said, sounding alarmed. “Like send one of us in there?”

“Rufus is vanilla, noted,” Jess murmured, pretending to write in her notebook.

Rufus flipped her off.

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Flynn said in that musing tone that spelled bad news—usually for Wyatt. “We book someone an appointment with Mistress Venom and can talk to her that way.”

“It could be that her boss didn’t know she was talking to Jennifer about all this, so she’d especially avoid talking to the cops,” Lucy said. “This way everyone wins.”

“But who do we send in?” Rufus asked. “Besides me, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Lucy scoffed. “You’d never work, you’re not into any of that and they’ll smell it on you immediately.”

“See? Somebody—wait what?” Rufus did a bit of a double take. “Are you saying I can’t pretend to—”

“I’m sorry, did you want to be sent in?” Flynn asked.

Rufus glared at him. “No,” he said, after a moment.

“Great. We’ll send in Wyatt.”

Wyatt, who had been watching all of this with amused disinterest, froze. “I—what?”

Flynn and Lucy looked at him like it was obvious. “You’ll go in,” Flynn repeated. “You’re the best candidate.”

“Why am I the best!?”

Jess clucked her tongue. “Oh, honey.”

Lucy eyed him up and down and Wyatt had the very uncomfortable and not entirely unpleasant feeling of being sized up by a lioness. “Oh, yes, it definitely has to be you.”

Wyatt looked at Flynn pleadingly. Flynn just chuckled. “Don’t worry, Logan, I’ll be there the entire time.”

Right. Because that made it _so _much better.

The club itself was a lot more high-end than Wyatt had anticipated. It was located on one of the upper floors of an office building in the business district, all glass and chrome, the waiting area looking just like the one for a brokerage firm or a law office. He and Flynn walked up, Flynn striding confidently like this was just another day at work—and hey, maybe it was for him, he wasn’t the one who had to pretend to be into all this shit.

“Good afternoon,” Flynn said to the receptionist, a perky-looking blonde. “We’ve got a one thirty appointment?”

“Hi, welcome!” The receptionist typed into her computer. “And who are you scheduled to see today?”

“Mistress Venom.”

The receptionist typed for a moment more, then nodded, looking up at Flynn. “You must be the partner.”

…how the fuck did she figure Flynn was the partner, huh? What if Flynn was there? Why did she just assume that it was—

“And you’re Wyatt?” the receptionist asked.

Wyatt found himself opening and closing his mouth, his throat dry.

“Answer her,” Flynn said, his voice sharp, quiet.

“Yes.” Wyatt’s voice cracked.

“You see what I have to deal with?” Flynn noted idly.

The receptionist nodded sympathetically. “Don’t worry, Mistress Venom is very good at helping doms figure out the best way to motivate subs into good behavior.”

Wyatt shifted his weight and told himself he was just imagining the room feeling warmer.

After signing a few NDAs, nothing they hadn’t planned on, they were shown down the hallway (which could only be gotten into through a door with a key card the receptionist swiped) and into a room (which needed a code keyed in) lit by soft, warm lighting.

“Mistress Venom will join you in a moment,” the receptionist assured them, closing the door behind them.

Wyatt felt himself gaping and tried to stop. “What the hell?” he managed, his voice a croak.

“Don’t worry,” Flynn said, his tone mild, “I’m sure we’ll work up to the St. Andrew’s Cross.”

“I fucking hate you, have I ever mentioned how much I actually, truly hate you?”

“I’m going to tell her you mouth off.”

“Don’t you _fucking dare—_”

The door opened again and an amazon of a woman walked in. Tall, redheaded, dressed in leather. Okay, this had to be Mistress Venom.

“Good afternoon.” Her lipstick was just a shade or two darker than bright red. Wyatt stared, just a little. “I’m Mistress Juno, I’ll be working with you today.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “We booked with Mistress Venom.”

“I’m afraid she’s not available.”

Wyatt caught sight of what looked like various, uh, vibrators. Why was that one shaped like…

“Don’t touch,” Mistress Juno ordered.

Wyatt raised his hands up. “Sorry.” What, when he got nervous he got fidgety, sue him.

Flynn narrowed his eyes at Wyatt, then glanced at Mistress Juno. Something had just irritated Flynn, but Wyatt wasn’t sure what. “So, Juno. Roman queen of the gods. I’m guessing you’re in charge around here.”

“Very good.” The woman’s voice was almost a purr. “I tend to do more backstage operating nowadays, but I step in when we need a last-minute change.”

Wyatt frowned at what looked like some kind of rings drilled into the bed—because there was a bed, which looked oddly innocuous and out of place next to the other more obviously sexual apparatus—

“Sit,” Mistress Juno ordered.

Wyatt jumped in surprise and found himself sitting instinctively before he caught himself, and then wondered if maybe he could borrow that set of rope over there real quick to hang himself.

Flynn’s jaw clenched. “You mind not ordering my partner around like that?”

“Oh, but he responds so well.” Mistress Juno smirked right back at Flynn and Wyatt became aware that there was a power struggle going on and he had somehow gotten himself in the middle of it.

“I’m not a chew toy,” he snapped. “You can stop snarling over me.”

Flynn rolled his eyes. “I’m not—this is ridiculous. Ma’am, we’re not here because we want Mistress Venom to help us with a bedroom problem.”

“That’s what many couples say,” Mistress Juno replied smoothly. “It’s just to spice things up, etcetera. It’s perfectly all right to admit that there might be some issues with your power dynamics—”

“We do not have issues with our power dynamics!” Wyatt blurted out.

“Right, because you always listen to me,” Flynn snapped.

“I listen to you when it’s _necessary _to listen to you but—”

“Oh my God.” Flynn closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Look, we don’t have bedroom problems because there is no bedroom. We’re not a couple, we’re cops.” He pulled out his badge. “We need to speak to Mistress Venom about a murder investigation.”

Mistress Juno froze. “Oh. I have many high-profile clients, mister…?”

“Detective. Garcia Flynn.”

“Detective Flynn. Well, if you think that one of my clients—”

“I assure you we’re not after your black book,” Flynn said, cutting her off. “We just need to speak to your employee.”

“Well, I’m afraid you can’t.” Mistress Juno shrugged, somehow making the gesture elegant. “She disappeared. Hasn’t shown up for a few days. I tried calling but got no answer.”

Something clicked into place in Wyatt’s head and he stood up. “Mistress Venom’s real name wouldn’t happen to be Jennifer, would it?”

Flynn’s head whipped around, his eyes wide. Mistress Juno smirked. “Why, as a matter of fact it would be, clever boy.”

Wyatt swallowed and looked away, over to Flynn. “Uhhh?”

“Looks like we might need to look at your black book then after all,” Flynn said. “Jennifer’s our murder victim.”

* * *

Mistress Juno was understandably reluctant to tell them any of her clients, including Jennifer’s, but she caved once Flynn told her about the thesis.

“All of your client information is already detailed in there,” he explained in her office, sitting while Wyatt paced back and forth. Wyatt could never sit still when he was nervous.

Flynn wanted to tell him to sit, but that made him think of Mistress Juno doing the same thing, and that pissed him off for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate. He could say he didn’t like the idea of someone ordering Wyatt around, and that was true, but that didn’t quite cover all of it. “Whatever dirty secrets you’re trying to protect, we already know. We just want the names so that we can pursue anyone who might have done your girl harm. You run a discreet and professional business. I’m guessing that means you care about your employees and your reputation. How much would both suffer if it became known you let a murderer get away with killing one of your girls?”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Mistress Juno noted. She printed out a page from the computer, handing it over. “Those are all the profiles of the clients Jennifer saw. It lists their name, number, and their preferences—what they do and don’t like. That should match up with whatever she put in that thesis.”

“Aren’t you pissed?” Wyatt asked, finally stopping in his pacing. “She was going to expose a lot of confidential information in that thesis.”

“A thesis that would be read by, what, twenty people?” Mistress Juno smirked at him. She smirked like she had Wyatt’s number, and Flynn found something in him clawing angrily at the inside of his chest in response. “And no names given? No. No, I think I’m fine.”

“But what about the betrayal of it?” Wyatt gestured around them. “Isn’t that the big thing about this community? It’s all about trust and consent? Jennifer kind of violated those when she did that thesis without your knowledge.”

“Somebody’s done his homework, very good.”

Flynn noticed how Wyatt tried to hide his preening. The monster in his chest growled.

“Look, if Jennifer were alive, sure, I’d talk with her.” Mistress Juno shrugged. “But she’s not. And your partner here is right, I want my girls safe and my clients protected as well. If it’s known I let a murderer into our midst I’d lose business. So here we are.”

Flynn stood up. “Thank you for your time.”

Mistress Juno stood as well. “Of course.”

Wyatt headed out, but before Flynn could, Mistress Juno lightly touched his elbow. “Verbal,” she said.

“What?”

“He responds very well to verbal cues. Humiliation, orders, praise. Use that on him.”

Flynn stared for a second, and then he realized what she meant. “We’re really not… we’re just work partners.”

Mistress Juno looked like she was stifling a laugh. “Of course, whatever you say.”

Flynn left the office, ignoring Wyatt’s questioning look, and definitely ignoring the heat he felt creeping up his neck.

* * *

Lucy turned to the next page of Jennifer’s thesis notes. There was a lot in here—a lot that probably wouldn’t make it into the final draft of the paper. It had shocked Lucy when she’d first learned that thesis papers weren’t these huge fifty-page monsters. How were you supposed to cram all those years of research and care into such a concise essay?

Then again, she’d never tried.

“Penny for your thoughts, my dear?”

Lucy looked up. Mason was leaning in the doorway that led to her office, a cup of tea in hand. Mason was a loyal Brit except when he was in one of his despondent moods, where he switched to being a loyal Scot and drank whisky until he was trying to soliloquize.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Mason said by way of explanation. “And I’m not sure I can decipher the look on your face.”

Lucy shrugged. “Do you ever think… oh, if something had gone slightly differently, I’d be someone else, doing something else with my life?”

“Such as…?”

Lucy ran her fingers over Jennifer’s thesis notes. “Like my car accident.”

Mason walked over and sat down across from her.

Lucy tried to keep her voice steady. “I was—that changed everything, for me. I thought, _life’s too short_, and I went and I wrote a book. And somehow people liked it. I told my mom I couldn’t be a history professor, I couldn’t be completely like her. And now…” She gestured around them. “Look at me. I met you, and you were wonderful. I live in New York City. I’m working with the NYPD. But… but in another life I might have been doing this.” She tapped the papers.

Mason sighed. “My dear, I don’t think that any of us can really know what to think of the infinite possible other lives we might have led. The people we might or might not have had in our lives. And conversely, I don’t think it’s very wise to think about it for too long, because—well, you deal quite a lot with the past. In your previous series and in this one, with all your wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey nonsense.” He smiled at her. “But the present is really all that we’ve got. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, was there another life where she was prouder of you. Or where she understood you. Or where you felt less resentful. And I’m saying bollocks to that. Because if you spend too much time thinking about that, you’re not thinking about what you do have, which is quite a lot of good.”

“Is it, though?” Her words came out in a whisper. “I mean, look at me. I’m in this fancy penthouse, running after detectives like it’s a summer hobby, like I’m a tourist. There’s so much… much more that I could be doing, isn’t there?”

“Maybe.” Mason shrugged. “I don’t think you’re killing the world, Lucy, let’s lay the blame for that on the billionaires and the corporations rather than us measly little millionaires shall we?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious. You do quite a lot, Lucy, don’t beat yourself up for not saving the world, and don’t beat yourself up because you refused to be the perfect clone that Carol wanted for you. I mean—just look at the charity work—”

“Right. The charity work that enabled someone to get the idea to try and cover up their murders.”

Mason spread his hands wide. “Go ahead and drive yourself crazy if you like, Lucy. I think you’re good enough, just as you are. But my approval isn’t going to help you. You need to find that inside of yourself.”

Jennifer had approved of herself. She’d had no second guesses about what she was doing, or the choices she’d made. Even her talk about cutting someone out of her life was confident. Saying that she was going to talk to the person calmly but firmly and only once she’d made safe arrangements to distance herself.

Lucy’d never had the courage to do that with Carol. Carol, her mother, who she loved so much—and resented in equal measure. _Codependent_, Jennifer had said about this person. God, she might as well have just called Lucy out personally. _I feel suffocated_.

Even after her death it felt like Carol Preston was still, somehow, wrapping herself around Lucy so tightly that she couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t know how,” Lucy said. “How do you do it?”

“You think I approve of myself?” Mason chuckled and sipped his tea. “Good Lord, where have you been all these years? I’m the most miserable bastard to walk this earth. But I have higher hopes for you, Lucy. Amy got too much self-approval, I think she could do with a little humbling. But you, dear… you don’t have to find that approval from other people. Somehow, I know, you’ll find it in yourself. Just give it time.”

Lucy rolled her head, feeling her neck crack. “I hope it’s not too much sooner. I’m getting old.”

Mason stood up. “When you’re on the other end of fifty, Lucy, then we can talk about you getting old. You want some tea?”

“Ooh, yes, please, I’m not even halfway through this mess.”

Mason smiled at her and stepped out.

Lucy quickly wiped at her eyes and got back to the thesis.

* * *

Jennifer talked about a lot of clients in her thesis draft, but only one of them raised any red flags—a man who kept, as Jennifer put it, _pushing back so that I would punish him._

“He’s a masochist but he’s also a sadist,” Lucy read aloud as they brought the man in question, named in Mistress Juno’s list as Sam Masterson, and put him in the interrogation room. “He wants to hurt me, and he will often break rules during our sessions. I’m going to have to talk to Juno about him. If he can’t be trusted to obey me then I can’t have him as my client any longer.”

The kicker, for Flynn, was one of the fantasies Masterson had described as having, a fantasy he had relayed to a rather perturbed Jennifer.

_He told me he wants to tie me up and drown me in honey. Hold me under until I’m thrashing._

Flynn didn’t care what someone’s sexual preferences were, generally speaking. But wanting to hurt someone like that—wanting to just see them scared and in pain, to _kill _them—that sickened him.

“I’m going in,” he said to Wyatt and Lucy, who were in the observation room with him.

“Actually,” Lucy said, “I think I should take the lead on this one.”

“…Lucy,” Flynn noted, “you’re not a cop.”

Lucy started to fix up her hair. “No, I’m not. But I was a dominatrix in college.”

Wyatt’s jaw dropped open and Flynn felt everything in him going hot and rushing south.

Fuck.

Without another word, Lucy walked out of the observation room and into the room where Sam Masterson was pacing. “Sit.”

Her voice was like a whip crack and Wyatt jumped. Flynn couldn’t help but notice that Wyatt started to sit down, before he realized that there was nowhere to sit and that Lucy didn’t mean him.

“Excuse me?” Masterson looked pissed and confused.

“I said…” Lucy dropped the files on the table with a satisfying _thwack_. “Sit.”

Masterson sat.

Flynn could hear Lucy’s smirk, even if he couldn’t see it. He would’ve given a million bucks to be able to see her face right now, and yet, he was simultaneously grateful that he couldn’t.

“Good boy,” Lucy noted. She stayed standing. “So. Let’s talk about your little visits with Mistress Venom.”

“I see client confidentially doesn’t mean anything anymore,” Masterson replied.

Lucy began to methodically fold up the sleeves of her jacket. “No, unfortunately. Now, let’s cut the foreplay and get right to the negotiations, here.” She braced her hands on the chair across from Masterson. “You’re into pain. Giving it and getting it. That’s why you’re mouthing off with me. And I bet you right now you’re thinking about how you’re so much taller than I am, bigger than I am, it would be real easy for you to turn the tables. Part of you wants to, and part of you wants to try and fail. But let me make something very clear to you: you’re not in the playroom anymore. It’s one thing to be whipped by your mistress and entirely another thing to be beaten in a prison, am I making myself clear, here?”

Flynn had never heard Lucy’s voice like this. He almost wished she could be this commanding in other aspects of her life. It was like a switch had been flipped somehow. She had the room in a stranglehold, and she wasn’t letting go of it—and she was acting like it was the most casual, easy thing in the world.

“Now, you can keep being a mouthy little brat,” Lucy continued, “or you can cooperate, and be a good boy. It’s up to you. But if you keep going on the first route you’re not going to like where you end up. It’s all fun and games until it’s not anymore. It’s your choice.”

She cleared her throat, looking back towards the window, and Flynn realized what she was asking for.

He grabbed the files and walked out of the observation room, into the interrogation room. Lucy was looking at him like—like—

Flynn handed her the files, careful not to let their fingers touch. He forced himself not to scurry out of there, forced himself to walk calmly out like his throat wasn’t oddly dry and he wasn’t feeling Lucy’s gaze on his back like a physical weight.

Lucy flipped through the files. “Fascinating, isn’t it, how you detailed to Jennifer exactly what you wanted to do to her, and that’s exactly how she ended up being murdered?”

“Wait.” Masterson went pale. “Wait, what? Who’s Jennifer?”

“Mistress Venom’s real name.” Lucy said. She sounded as confident as before, but Flynn noted how she shifted her weight. That was a good trap Lucy had set for Masterson—using Jennifer’s actual name and seeing if Masterson took it in stride, which would mean Masterson knew of her double identity and most likely knew of the thesis as well. But Masterson had reacted, which meant either he was a smarter murderer than Flynn had thought, or he was possibly innocent.

“She was murdered.” Lucy said this casually, sliding the photos of Jennifer’s body across to Masterson like it was nothing, like it wasn’t the gruesome sight that it actually was. “Rather graphic, isn’t it? Is this what you wanted, Sam? Is this what you pictured when you spilled your guts to her?”

The use of his first name—another subtle way to exude dominance. Lucy was still standing while Masterson was sitting, making her the taller person in the room, the one with the power.

Next to him, Wyatt was rather red-faced and fidgety. It reminded Flynn of how Wyatt had been with Mistress Juno… except that Flynn didn’t mind if Wyatt was like this right now. There was no hot, angry response inside of him.

It was just because he understood, that was all. He was feeling much the same way, after all. He could hardly blame Wyatt for this reaction when Flynn himself was struggling to remember how to stand upright.

“N-no!” Masterson shoved the photos away from himself like they were mocking him. “No, I wouldn’t—I didn’t even know she was dead, I swear—I’ve been out of town for days, you can ask anyone! You can ask—I was with a few pals, we were playing golf, Senator—you can ask him, Senator C—”

“All right.” Lucy held up a hand and Masterson quieted. “I can see you want to cooperate. You want to cooperate, don’t you? Help me out?”

Masterson nodded. _You want to cooperate, _Flynn thought on a loop, and oh, he was so done for.

“I’ll have an officer come in and take your statement, for the records,” Lucy said. “If you’re good and cooperate this will all be over quickly and you can go back to golf with your buddies. All right?”

Masterson nodded, and Lucy stepped back, glancing at the window again. She had a thoughtful look on her face, one that Flynn recognized—she was thinking about something, some theory that had occurred to her.

Without another word Lucy exited the interrogation room, joining Flynn and Wyatt in the observation room.

“He seems shaken up,” Wyatt noted, sounding rather shaken up himself.

“I don’t think it’s a client,” Lucy said in a rush.

Flynn blinked, her transition from smooth domme to her usual energetic, eager buoyancy startling him more than he wanted to admit. “Oh?”

“When I was—my clients always thought we got this intimate connection,” Lucy said. Her eyes were shining, they always shone when she had a good theory. “But to me, they were always just clients, nothing more. Why would I write a good chunk of notes about codependency and smothering on a client? Why would I be scared of someone who didn’t know my real name? Why—” She began to pace. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

Lucy shook her head and then yanked open the door. “C’mon!”

“C’mon where!?” Flynn asked.

“Alice Holmwell!” Lucy yelled over her shoulder.

…okay then.

* * *

Jess tapped her fingers along the edge of the desk, watching Evan—Jennifer’s fiancé—sinking lower into his seat. He didn’t act guilty, but then, very few people did. Everyone had seen the police procedurals, the crime shows. They knew how to act to hide their secrets.

“And you want us to believe that you knew nothing about Jennifer’s side job—when she was the woman you were intending to marry?” Rufus asked.

Evan shook his head. “She told me she was just interviewing this person, I swear she didn’t tell me she was actually…” He clenched his hands. “If I’d known, I never would’ve… I was telling her, she shouldn’t be mixing with that sort of people.”

“That sort of people?” Rufus raised an eyebrow. “You’d be amazed at what kind of people were on her client list.”

Yeah, there’d even been a senator on there. Jess wished she could say she was surprised. “Listen, Evan.” She adopted her soothing good-cop voice. “You can keep secrets from even the people you’re closest to. Don’t beat yourself up.”

Evan snorted. “Yeah, right, my fiancée was murdered and I’m supposed to not beat myself up over not knowing about this whole side of her life?”

“It’s still her life.” Jess felt that tell-tale flutter in her chest and shoved it down. “It’s still up to her to tell you or not, and she chose not to. I know that it hurts, but she was quitting. Her thesis was finished. Maybe—she knew you didn’t approve of it, and so she probably felt like—what was the point in telling you when it was all over and done with?”

_What was the point when it was finished?_

Rufus glanced over at her and Jess was careful to keep her face neutral.

“I just wished she’d told me,” Evan said, shaking his head, his hands clenching and unclenching on his knees. “You’ll—you’ll get who did this, right? You’ll make sure he’s behind bars?”

“We’ll do everything we can,” Jess assured him. “And for what it’s worth… Jennifer thought she was doing the right thing, in keeping you in the dark. She thought she was sparing you from… pain.”

Rufus glanced at her again and Jess winced inwardly. _Poor choice of words, Jessica. Too close to home. _She smiled reassuringly at Evan and then stood up. “We’ll be in touch.”

“You think it was him?” Rufus asked as they left. While Wyatt and Flynn pursued the leads from the BDSM clients, she and Rufus had been dealing with the personal side—Jennifer’s roommate, Alice Holmwell, had mentioned that Jennifer had seemed scared of Evan, and so they were checking him out. Jennifer was certainly scared of someone, at least according to her thesis notes. Those had ranged into the personal at times, and there was someone, not mentioned by name, who was called _codependent_ and _smothering_, someone Jennifer had chosen to break away from.

“I mean, unless the guy’s an exceptionally good actor, I don’t think he’s capable of violence like that,” Rufus noted. “Jiya said cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and strangulation, and I just can’t see him doing either to someone.”

“You’d be surprised what people are capable of, though. The people who don’t look like it—they’re able to do more than you’d think.” She hadn’t looked like she was capable of it, either.

Rufus shoved his hands into his pockets. “You okay, Jess?”

“What do you mean?”

“Some of the things you said. Seemed a little… I don’t know.” He looked deliberately away from her, like he was trying to give her space. “On the nose. Like you were speaking from… personal experience.”

Jess ignored the flutter in her chest. She’d kept her secret for this long, she wasn’t going to let one minor slip cause her to spill her guts to her colleague. Even if that colleague was also a friend. “I’m just that persuasive with suspects.” She winked at him.

Rufus adopted a terrible British accent. “All right. Keep your secrets.”

Jess laughed, and just like that it was normal again.

* * *

It was a dangerous addiction, solving a case. Lucy wasn’t sure if she’d ever get over it, that rush of realization, that spark that turned the lightbulb on and lit up the entire space of her brain with knowing how it had gone.

“I was interviewing Masterson,” she explained, leading Wyatt and Flynn out into the bullpen, “and the whole time I was thinking, what if I were me? What if I had been Jennifer? And I thought—well you read her thesis notes. And I was just thinking, I never let a client get close enough to me to develop codependency. I never let a client get close enough for any of that. So why would she? She was studying these people for her paper, there was no way she’d—she treated them like test subjects because that’s what they were to her.”

She grabbed her coat. “And I’m not saying that’s good or bad, I’m not judging. But it’s just—it is what it is.”

“But Jess and Rufus talked to the fiancé,” Flynn said. “He seemed clean, and he’s got an alibi for the time of death, he was working his shift at the hospital.”

“Right! But who told us that Jennifer was worried about her fiancé?” Lucy replied, triumph coursing through her veins. “Jennifer never used pronouns when talking about this person she was worried about. It was Alice that pointed us towards the fiancé. And what do we always say? It’s usually someone close to the person.”

She gestured at them to hurry up as Flynn and Wyatt grabbed their things. “I remembered thinking—when we got to the crime scene—that it was like something out of a book. Hanging by handcuffs, covered in honey? And then Jiya said in her report that it was blunt force trauma to the head along with the strangling. And I thought—”

Flynn’s eyes lit up and she knew he was on the same wavelength that she was. “It looks like it’s from a book because it’s staged.”

“Exactly!”

“So, what, the killer took the most outlandish thing from Jennifer’s thesis to cover up the actual murder, which was blunt force trauma, to throw us off the scent?” Wyatt’s face screwed up as he tried to picture it.

“Yes,” Lucy said at the same moment as Flynn.

“Think about it,” Flynn said, leading Wyatt out as they hurried to the squad car, “it led us in completely the wrong direction, focusing on her clients, on the BDSM club.”

“But whoever killed her had to have read her thesis,” Wyatt pointed out. “Only her two classmates did that, the ones competing with her for the fellowship, they were all proofreading for each other.”

“Because if you’re a codependent roommate you’re going to respect personal boundaries and not read someone’s stuff,” Lucy said, more bitterness entering her tone than she’d intended.

Wyatt flushed and looked away. Flynn raised an eyebrow at her, but Lucy didn’t elaborate. She wasn’t about to get into it. Mom would read everything. Lucy’d gotten good at hiding her diary over the years.

Amy had just put as many sexual exploits in bright gel pen colors as possible so that Mom would get outraged and stop reading. Maybe if Lucy had been a bolder person she would have written down her own… exploits, her side job as an undergrad. But she hadn’t been. She’d kept that a secret, just like she’d kept Carine a secret.

“So,” Flynn said, getting into the driver’s seat, “we go talk to Alice.”

* * *

“I didn’t want to hurt her.”

That was what Alice kept saying.

“I didn’t want to hurt her. I loved her. Don’t you understand? I loved her. I just wanted her to stay.” She looked up at Lucy, as if she thought that Lucy might understand and call off the arrest. “She betrayed me! She was going behind my back—she was my best friend!”

The room felt too small and Lucy had to close her ears, her eyes, her heart, pulling away as Flynn quietly and smoothly read Alice her Miranda Rights and handcuffed her. Alice’s voice rose in pitch and volume, until she was screaming.

Lucy had to sit down.

Wyatt paused, laying a hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”

She nodded. “I just need a moment.”

_I do all this because I love you! You went behind my back!_

Wyatt squeezed her shoulder and went out after Flynn.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually her breathing got deeper, easier. Her mother wasn’t Alice. Alice wasn’t her mother. Carol had been—a lot. But she’d cared, and Lucy could remember being close with her, and loving her. It hadn’t been so bad that she’d wanted to get out.

Or maybe that was just because she’d been raised in it and used to it?

She didn’t know, she really didn’t.

“Hey.”

He had to crouch to do it, but Flynn got onto her level so that she could look him in the eye.

“You doing all right?”

Lucy started to nod, then changed her mind and shook her head. “I just need a moment,” she repeated.

Flynn watched her, staring into her eyes, searching her face. Lucy watched him right back.

“It can be intense, I know,” Flynn said at last. “It’s not easy. It’s not like television. There’s not always… it doesn’t always feel good, to catch the bad guy. It just makes you feel… sad.”

Lucy nodded. “I’m sorry. I—do you know why I became a dominatrix?”

Flynn blinked. “Not what I thought you would say, but all right, I’m game.”

Lucy chuckled in spite of herself. “I… I didn’t need the money, exactly. But I did. That is—my mom comes from money. My dad doesn’t, but the Preston side, we have enough that I didn’t have to worry—and my mom was on faculty so that helped. But she—I had an allowance. Everything I had was really hers. There was nothing for myself. And so my—my girlfriend, she encouraged me to do something that would help me be… she called it _fuck you _money. It’s something you need to have—she said it’s how people can leave their abusive spouses. I didn’t think of my mom as abusive, of course, and I—maybe, she was. I don’t know. I feel like you should know, but it’s not… it’s not always cut and dried, is it?

“Carine, my girlfriend, and I, we had gone to this club a couple of times as a couple. I’m… submissive with women, but we’d had a third, once or twice, and when it was a man, I was… I like being in charge. And I wanted a job where my mom wouldn’t run into me or hear about me, so I couldn’t just go down to the local coffee shop. So when the woman in charge of the place said I’d be good enough—I could be a professional, I asked if she’d take a chance on me. And I was good at it.” She felt the corners of her mouth turning upwards. “I was really, really good at it.

“Once I had my—my revelation and I sent in my manuscript I quit, but that money was still there, my ‘fuck you’ money, and it just… it just helped me feel so much better already, just having it. I could get away if I wanted…” She trailed off.

“The way Jennifer tried to,” Flynn said, finishing the sentence for her. “Only it went wrong when Alice read the thesis.”

Lucy nodded.

“Your mother wouldn’t have murdered you, Lucy.”

“You never met her, you don’t know that. I don’t like to think that she would have. I never feared for myself around her, not once. She was never violent. But what if she was and I just didn’t press the right buttons? What if she was—what if she would have, and I just was never unlucky enough to find out?”

Flynn brought his fingers up to his lips, pursing his mouth slightly. “Lucy… it doesn’t matter what someone might or might not have done. I might have killed myself after I lost Lorena and Iris. But I didn’t. Wyatt might have become a full-blown alcoholic. He might have upgraded from yelling at Jess to hitting her—and I know he’ll never admit it but he’s terrified of that, every goddamn day, I see it in how careful he is with her, he never touches her without asking first.”

He put his hands on Lucy’s knees—so very gently, his fingers curving around them, not like she was fine china, but like she was a warm mug, gentle and comforting and comforted, all at once. “It doesn’t matter. Almost, maybe, should have, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what did happen. And what did happen is that your mother, for all her faults, never hurt you. Never made you feel unsafe. You never had to use the fuck you money.”

Suddenly she was crying—she was crying so hard she was shaking, sobs heaving up and threatening to choke her, and it felt like sobs she’d been keeping in for a year, since the funeral, since before that.

“I never cried,” she said, almost wonderingly. “I never cried, when she—I never—”

Flynn pulled her in, and she knew they had to go down to the squad car, they had to check Alice in, they had to join Wyatt… but for just a moment, she let herself give in, and she cried into Flynn’s chest.

* * *

Wyatt couldn’t stop thinking about Alice Holmwell.

She’d loved Jennifer—not in the same way that Wyatt—but she had loved her. Did love her. And it had become something unhealthy, something twisted, something that had driven Alice to violence and possession.

How many times had Wyatt yelled at Jess, accused her of flirting with other men, been angry and abrasive, and told himself that he still wasn’t like his father, just because he didn’t hit her? After all Jess had done for him, after—after the secret they’d carried between them, their sin hardly evenly divided, and he’d still treated her like crap. What if he was doing the same to Flynn?

Keynes had called him a lot of things. Dirty, twisted, wrong. _We’re the same, aren’t we, Wyatt? _And he knew, intellectually, that they weren’t the same. He didn’t want to go around murdering people. But what if there was just enough truth to what Keynes had said?

Jennifer had felt suffocated in her relationship with her best friend. She’d felt unsafe. And Alice had proven that by murdering her.

He wouldn’t ever murder Flynn. Never, ever. But what if he was suffocating him? What if he was—stifling Flynn? Flynn didn’t need him anymore, after all. Not in the way he had those awful first few months, that first year. What if Flynn wanted to spread his wings and Wyatt was holding him back? Keeping him in a bad pattern?

Flynn didn’t say anything on their drive home after wrapping everything up, but once they got into the apartment, he blocked Wyatt from going into the shower, where Wyatt had been fully intending to hide for, oh, at least an hour. “You want to tell me what’s going on with you?”

Wyatt froze. “There’s nothing going on with me.”

Flynn stared him down. Wyatt had seen plenty of criminals crumble under that stare. He held his ground.

To his surprise, Flynn was the one who crumbled. His face went soft, almost devastated. “Wyatt…” He reached out, and Wyatt had to force himself to stay still, and not take a step back. Flynn’s hand connected with his shoulder, his fingers wrapping around it, long and strong, gripping, and Wyatt realized it had been—it had been a couple of weeks since he’d let Flynn touch him like this. Or touch him at all, really.

It felt like he was burning.

“Did something happen?” Flynn sounded like he was whispering something profane. An unholy truth. “Did Keynes—whatever happened, you’re safe, you can tell me. Did he—did he do, something, to you?”

A bubble of hysterical laughter almost burst out of him and Wyatt had to clench his jaw to keep it in. He’d never thought—hadn’t realized that such an assumption could be made, but now it made total sense that Flynn might think that. “No,” he said, with complete honesty. “No, Flynn, Keynes didn’t touch me. He never laid a finger on me, except to tie me up and then, uh, pistol whip me.”

“You don’t let me touch you anymore,” Flynn said bluntly. His fingers were still wrapped around Wyatt’s shoulder, like he was trying to brand their mark there. “You flinch away.”

“I…” His throat was too dry for this. He was too sober for this. And hell if that wasn’t a scary thought. “The things Jennifer said, in her report. Her notes. About—about Alice. You don’t think—did any of that ring true, for you?”

Flynn stared at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as his face went tense, trying to figure out what Wyatt meant. “Why would it?”

Wyatt gestured miserably between the two of them. “Us, Flynn. The codependency? The unhealthy friendship? The…”

“Do you feel smothered?” Flynn’s hand dropped from his shoulder and Wyatt nearly swayed as he realized he’d been leaning into it.

“What? No, I meant you, you idiot.”

“Why would I feel smothered!?”

“Because we’re always in each other’s space. Because we do everything together. Because half the time I fall asleep on you. Pick your poison.” Wyatt’s chest felt too tight and too hot and he wondered vaguely if this was how Lucy felt when she had her panic attacks. “I’m deadweight, Flynn, c’mon, and we were—we were close when we needed it but don’t you think that maybe—in grief, or something, I don’t know, we got too close?”

_We got too close and I got you inside of me somewhere deep that I can’t scrub out and I want too much and I need too much and I’m leeching from you and I’m gonna bleed you dry._

“I just—I was bad for Jess.” His voice was rising in pitch, half his words strangled. “I was so bad for her, and she was nothing but good to me, and—I mean you don’t even know half the shit, Flynn, and I don’t want to be bad for you too, and what if I am, what if—”

Flynn yanked him into the fiercest hug Wyatt had ever gotten.

For a second, Wyatt was too startled to do anything except stand there. Then he realized, oh, yeah, he should probably hug back or something, so he did, wrapping his arms around Flynn. Gingerly at first, then tighter.

“When have I ever been afraid to tell you when you’re fucking up?” Flynn asked, his voice rough. “Huh? You want us to go to a therapist like you and Jess? We can do that. But Wyatt. I’m not scared of you. I’m not smothered. I want you in my life.”

Wyatt clung tighter, dipping his face down to bury his nose in Flynn’s shoulder. “I don’t want to be bad for you.” _I want romance and you want friendship and that’s gonna make me fuck up._

“You’re not.” Flynn’s voice was right at his ear. “You’re good for me. I promise.”

Wyatt squeezed his eyes shut and pretended he believed it.

* * *

Lucy kicked off her shoes and groaned in relief. “Hello? Anyone home?”

“I am!” Amy waved from the kitchen. “Mason’s out with Rufus grabbing a drink.”

“Oh?” Lucy walked over to join her sister, noting a small dark smudge peeking out from underneath the collar of Amy’s shirt. “Can’t say I saw that coming. Mason’s all…” She waved her hands in the air dramatically. “And Rufus is so… down to earth.”

Amy chuckled. “Yeah, but they seem to really hit it off. Balance each other out, I guess?” She shrugged.

“You’re awfully giggly,” Lucy noted, sitting down on one of the chairs. “Out with Jess?”

Amy nodded. “We met and she told me about the case. Crazy stuff. And, uh, the precinct knows about your old college habits now, I take it.”

“Mom’s turning over in her grave.” The thought made a kind of vicious glee spike in her. Take that, Carol, your perfect princess wasn’t so strait-laced after all.

Amy snickered, picking at what seemed to be the remains of some toast. “We had a lot of fun.”

“Mmm.” Lucy leaned forward on her elbows. “Ames? Can I have a total… stern big sister moment?”

“Is this where you tell me no glove no love?”

“No, I…” Lucy winced. “I’ve been getting to know Jess, and she’s a really good person. And she hasn’t really been with anyone since she and Wyatt split, I don’t think. And I know you’re… you know… not the committing type…”

Amy frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means—just be careful with her, okay?”

“What.” Amy folded her arms. “You think I’m just leading her on or something?”

“I think that maybe this is more casual to you than it is to her.”

“And what if it’s not casual to me?” Amy’s tone was blunt.

Lucy blinked. Went over that sentence in her head. “I… is it not?”

Amy looked away, vulnerability spiking in her eyes before she wrestled it back down. “I don’t know.”

Lucy sat up straight. She hadn’t thought Amy would ever settle down with one person, or at least not for some time. “Do you think…”

“I don’t know what I think.” Amy looked back at her. “Look, I just know that she’s really funny, and she makes me laugh. She’s gorgeous. She’s great in bed but she never pushed for anything, she let me suggest the sexual stuff. She’s aware of the age difference and not in a way that’s annoying. She’s surprisingly sweet. I know she’s—she’s been through a lot and she hasn’t really told me much but I know I don’t want to—I want to earn the chance for her to tell me that stuff, you know?”

Lucy reached out, offering her hand, palm up. Amy unfolded her arms and took it. “I don’t know where this is going, I just know that I like where we are. And I’m not looking to move onto the next shiny thing.”

Lucy nodded. “That’s fair.”

She squeezed Amy’s hand. Amy squeezed back.

“What about your boys?” Amy then asked.

Lucy snatched her hand back and used it to point at her sister. “Don’t.”

“Oh come on, you get all dreamy-eyed whenever you talk about working with them—”

“That’s because I like the work, it doesn’t… I’m going to bed.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I have writing to do.”

“Uh-huh.”

Lucy glared at her, then went upstairs, Amy’s knowing cackle following her the entire way.

* * *

Wyatt woke up with a pounding headache. Holy shit. He hadn’t drunk this much in years, not since he’d sobered up to keep Flynn from jumping off the goddamn roof.

God, why did his head hurt so much? Why was he so… why were his limbs so heavy…

He tried moving, only to find that there was some kind of weight attached to him. And his bed didn’t feel very comfortable, more like just a thin mattress… and why was it so dark…

Slowly, his surroundings came into focus. He was in some kind of—of basement? What the fuck?

He sat up, breathing heavily, trying not to hyperventilate. What—where the—

“W-Wyatt?”

He turned and realized what the weight was.

It was Lucy.

He was handcuffed to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plots from this chapter were taken from The Mistress Always Spanks Twice (2x16) + beginning of Cuffed (4x10).


	4. Chapter 4

Wyatt hated to admit when he was panicking but right now—yeah, he was panicking. He felt vaguely like throwing up and his head was pounding and fuzzy, like he’d just gotten off a horrible rollercoaster.

Lucy stared at him, reaching out to pet his face like she had to make sure he was actually real and not some weird hallucination. “Wyatt?”

“Yup, that’s me, in the flesh.” He tried to sit up, managed it—barely—and then almost threw up. “Fuck.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Where are we? How—how did we get here? Wyatt?” Lucy’s voice sounded shaky, thin, like glass about to break.

He opened his eyes again and looked at her. Lucy’s eyes were big, black, liquid, like belladonna. _Drugged_, he thought wildly. What were they doing here? Why couldn’t he remember anything?

“It’s okay,” he promised her. “It’s okay, just breathe, you’ve been drugged, you need to stay calm.”

Lucy nodded, her face pale.

Wyatt looked around. “Flynn?” he yelled. Was he around here somewhere? He had to be, didn’t he? “Flynn! Garcia!”

There was no answer.

Lucy sat up, and he saw her wince, her throat working like she was trying to swallow down bile. “They gave us—something, I feel—like shit.” She looked around. “Is this a basement?”

“I think so. I’m not sure.”

The mattress they were lying on was thin and dirty, smack in the middle of what seemed to be a large, dark room, and not the cleanest room either. The walls and floor looked like cement, and the only light came from a few bulbs strapped into the walls here and there.

Look, Wyatt wasn’t one to make assumptions, but they were handcuffed in a creepy warehouse-basement-room-thing after being drugged and… yup, a quick pat-down showed he didn’t have his phone, his keys, or his wallet.

He was definitely going to say they’d been kidnapped.

But by who? Keynes? Fuck, if it was Keynes—this would be the kind of thing Keynes did to mess with Flynn, take away Flynn’s partner and the woman that Flynn—

Wyatt looked over at Lucy, who was rubbing at her temples like she was trying to cure a headache. If it was Keynes, and he laid a single—if he even _thought _about laying a single finger on Lucy, Wyatt was going to find a way to kill him. Wyatt didn’t even care how.

They also had to get out of here. Wyatt wasn’t sure which was worse, finding out your wife and daughter had been viciously stabbed in an alley, or having two people you cared about just… disappear, never knowing exactly what had happened to them. Shit.

“I can’t—I can’t remember anything.” Lucy frowned. “Nothing after—we were on a case?”

“Yeah… a case. Body—body in a motel.” It was starting to come back to him now.

* * *

Flynn almost threw his phone against the wall when the call to Wyatt went to voicemail again.

“Heeeeeey,” Rufus said from his desk where he was doing paperwork on their latest case as Jiya played Tetris on her phone next to him. “Buddy, you okay?”

“Wyatt’s not answering his phone. Neither is Lucy. They were supposed to be back from that lead hours ago.”

“What lead?”

Flynn shrugged. “I was in the morgue with Jiya working on the fingerprints.”

They had found their murder victim suffocated in a motel with a bag over his head, but that was literally their only lead. The guy was a ghost. He didn’t have a record, and whoever had gotten him had done a mob or CIA level job with the body. The motel had been cleaned, no DNA anywhere from the murderer, and the victim’s fingerprints had been burned off. Fingerprints were never fully gone, of course, but lifting them off burned skin was a lot more difficult and Jiya had finally concluded that they needed to let the body freeze longer before she tried to get a good sample.

Flynn suspected their victim had been hauling drugs, or perhaps selling them—the motel he’d been found in was a known favorite of various truckers, and he had a large bruise around a needle mark in his lower back. Jiya was waiting for the toxicology report to come back but Flynn wouldn’t have been surprised if the results were a purposeful heroin overdose, or something along those lines. It was a favorite method of execution in the drug running community. At the very least it would’ve been something to get the guy weak enough to put a bag over his head for the suffocation, which was the official cause of death according to Jiya.

With no identity, no keys, wallet, phone, or anything on the guy to help them, just the random contents of the motel room wastepaper basket, they’d all been at a loss. Flynn could still remember the colorful ideas Wyatt and Lucy had been coming up with.

_Lucy opened her mouth._

_“Don’t say spy,” Flynn said._

_Lucy closed her mouth._

_Wyatt opened his mouth._

_“Don’t say mob hit,” Flynn said._

_Wyatt closed his mouth._

_“Mob hit of a spy?” Lucy ventured._

Flynn shook his head to clear it. Lucy and Wyatt didn’t just disappear. They didn’t just—not without calling someone. “Anyone heard from Jess?”

“She took off half an hour ago. Date with Amy,” Jiya said.

_Amy. _Flynn dialed her number.

“Hello?” The person in question sounded slightly out of breath. Flynn winced and did not follow that train of thought.

“Hey, Amy, I’m sorry to bother you…”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Amy said, right as Jess grumbled just loud enough for Flynn to hear, “it’s definitely not fine.”

“I just wanted to ask if you’d heard from Lucy?” Flynn asked. “Or if Jess had heard from Wyatt?”

Amy’s voice when she next spoke was sharper. “No. I thought she was at the precinct with you.”

Worry curled up in Flynn’s stomach like ice forming. “Thanks, Amy.”

“Flynn, is—is everything okay?” Amy’s voice dropped now, going soft, fragile. She sounded almost but not quite like Lucy in that moment, and Flynn’s heart clenched.

“If it’s not, then I’ll make it okay,” he promised her. “It’s probably nothing. Enjoy your date with Jess, and I’ll let you know if there’s any cause for concern.”

“Okay.” Amy didn’t sound all that convinced, but she hung up.

Flynn strode into Denise’s office. “Put an APB out on Wyatt’s squad car. He and Lucy are missing.”

* * *

Lucy wanted to pace, but she couldn’t when Wyatt was literally shackled to her, and she kind of wanted to strangle him, just a little bit, as a result. “Would it kill you to—to drop the macho bullshit for two seconds and actually let me think!?” she snapped.

“At least I’m trying to get us out of here,” Wyatt snapped back, still trying to examine the walls like he thought a hidden magical doorway was going to appear if he tapped on the right spot.

“How does Flynn even stand you?” Lucy muttered.

Part of it was her claustrophobia. She knew that, she knew it—could feel the walls closing in, the room already feeling smaller now than it had half an hour ago. Or an hour ago. That was the other thing. Time, they had no idea how much time had passed. No phone, no watch, no outside light from the sun… God she couldn’t, she couldn’t do this…

Wyatt turned, mouth open and nose screwed up, ready to snap right back at her—and then he paused. “You okay?”

“Okay!?” Lucy laughed, and it came out a bit hysterical. “I’m stuck in a room and I’m handcuffed to another person and God only knows how much air we have, no I’m not okay!”

She realized she was close to hyperventilating and took a few deep breaths. Wyatt made an aborted movement to reach out, then seemed to decide better of it and kept his distance from her. Or as much distance as he could, given the circumstances. “Are you—do you need me to talk you down from a panic attack?”

She shook her head. “I’ll—I’ll be fine.” If only they had some water in here or something. There was nothing in this damn room…

Well, nothing, except a rather ominous looking metal box over at the far end.

“You sure?” Wyatt looked around again, like a door might have magically manifested in the wall while he was distracted. “Look, I know this sucks. But Flynn will be here soon.”

“How? How is he going to find us? We have no way—we didn’t even tell him where we were going.”

Wyatt blinked at her. “We didn’t?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Honestly—I remember us being in an empty house. And there was… there was a noise… and we went to check it out, and we saw a cage. And there was an old woman…” Wyatt shivered. “She had a creepy look in her eye.”

“I…” Now that he said that, she could recall it. Fuck whoever had given them these drugs. Tranquilizers, Lucy was guessing, and strong ones, like they were usually used to take down a horse. She was impressed that neither of them had thrown up. “I remember… we found a clue, and it took us to the house, but we just… I don’t remember what the clue was. But we ran out without telling Flynn where we were going.”

“Denise is gonna murder us for that,” Wyatt muttered.

Lucy ran a hand through her hair. The handcuff around her wrist was like a deadweight, like a three-thousand-pound car sinking to the bottom of the San Francisco Bay…

Wyatt squinted at her. “Fuck, Lucy, are you sure the drugs aren’t still messing with you? Because you look like—I don’t know, like you might pass out.”

“It’s nothing.” She paused. “Well, it’s—so, the whole—the panic attack thing. It’s not because of—I mean a strange man approaching a woman, and paparazzi, yes, but it’s not because, or just because, of those reasons, it’s how they make me feel, like I’m stuck, like I’m back in… back in the car.”

She looked up into Wyatt’s face. “When I was in my senior year, as an undergrad, I didn’t want… my mom wanted me to go to graduate school. Become a history professor like she did. And I do love history, but that didn’t feel like my right path. I… I wanted to join a band.” She laughed. “Funny, I know. Ridiculous. But I think it was… I wanted so badly to rebel that I came up with the most outlandish—I swung the pendulum to the opposite end. And I’m not too bad a singer. So I, I was rehearsing how to tell her, and then—I was driving back, and rehearsing, and it was raining, and my car plunged into the water.”

Wyatt didn’t inhale sharply, or gasp, or do any of the things that people always did when she told this story, which wasn’t often since she avoided telling people as a general rule. He just went still. Lucy appreciated that.

“I got out. Obviously. But ever since then I can’t handle small… cramped spaces. I just can’t. Being in this room, no way to get out, I—it’s like I’m back in the car again. No way out.” She’d love some water right now. Or her soothing music playlist. Anything.

“There is a way out,” Wyatt said, and his voice wasn’t firm, more like… awestruck.

Lucy glared at him. “I know you’re trying to be inspirational right now, Wyatt, but—”

“No.” Wyatt pointed with his free hand—pointed up, at the ceiling. “I literally mean, there’s a way out.”

Lucy followed his pointing finger and, oh.

There was a trap door in the ceiling.

* * *

When Wyatt first realized he liked Flynn, he promptly went through the five stages of grief.

Denial: He did not like Flynn romantically or sexually. He did not like men romantically or sexually. He liked women. Sure, he and Jess were signing the divorce papers but he still had genuinely liked sex with her, had been in love with her, and that was all there was to it.

Anger: Why the fuck did he have to learn this now when he was in his thirties, anyway? Why couldn’t he have had this kind of revelation when he was fifteen or so and could actually do something about it? And why _him, _why _Garcia Flynn_, who was not only the most insufferable sassy motherfucker on the face of the earth but his brother-in-law?

Bargaining: It was fine, it was fine, he would just—not be in love with Flynn, because instead um… instead he would be a good person, he’d go to therapy like Jess wanted, with her and alone, and he would stop drinking so much. There. He would do that, and he’d sort his shit out, and these feelings for Flynn would go away.

Depression: He was in love with Flynn and Flynn would never love him back and Flynn was his goddamn brother-in-law and Wyatt was going to drown himself in the bathtub because nothing in life mattered.

Acceptance: He was in love with Flynn, and that was fine. He was just going to never mention it to anyone, but y’know. Fine.

It should be noted that he went through all of this in several cycles over the course of, oh, a couple of months. It was real fun.

Now he was firmly wobbling between depression and acceptance and that was where he was going to stay, thanks, but the point to all of that was—he’d never realized, or thought about it as much as he should, until Flynn, but—loving someone tended to come with a little bit of hero worship.

Nothing too insane. He had learned that the hard way with Jess. He’d put her up on such a damn pedestal there’d been no hope for her, no hope for them. She had saved his life. She had been the brave one, the person who’d gotten him out, who’d done what he couldn’t. And he’d worshipped her for it.

Flynn, now, it wasn’t to such a bad degree, but… Flynn was still—he still—well, Wyatt dared anyone not to get a little starry eyed over Flynn when Flynn was out there solving cases and managing to be both smart and insanely good looking which was, if you asked Wyatt, horrifically unfair of him. Like they were only supposed to be allowed so many good traits in life and Flynn had snuck back and stolen extra.

The point was, if anyone could find them and get them out of this mess, it would be Flynn. And Wyatt believed that he would. Flynn had to notice the clue that Wyatt and Lucy had. He had to and he’d follow the trail and somehow, that trail would lead him to Wyatt and Lucy. Wyatt just—wouldn’t consider any alternative.

But until Flynn got there, they were on their own, and Lucy was getting worse by the minute.

That left the metal box. An icebox, Lucy called it, although fuck if Wyatt knew why.

If they tilted it up to sit on its short end, it would possibly be tall enough that they could get out of the trap door in the ceiling. From there, Wyatt didn’t know, but he wasn’t a fan of this _Saw _situation with the handcuffs any more than Lucy was, and they needed to get her out of there before she went fully off the rails.

“We’re dealing with psychopaths,” Lucy noted as they opened the icebox and found it filled with chains and ropes. “I am absolutely stealing this for a novel.”

Wyatt began to haul out the chains so the icebox would be light enough for them to move it. “You’re already stealing everything else for your novels, might as well go all out.”

He hadn’t meant to sound so bitter about that. Lucy paused, her arms full of chains. Wyatt couldn’t move without her, which meant he jerked to a halt. “Are you… angry about that?”

He shrugged. “Not really. I mean, yes? Sometimes? I don’t know. I just…” He shuffled his weight. “I worry, I guess. Because you’re learning so much about us, and you’re… you know us, and that means you can put all this—this really personal stuff into the novels, and you aren’t telling us what you’re putting in and what you’re not and so—I’m worried that you’re going to put in things, and Flynn’s going to read it and…”

“I’m not putting in anything about—about Lorena and Iris,” Lucy promised. “I wouldn’t.”

Wyatt felt his face heating up, shame twisting his gut. He hadn’t meant Lorena and Iris. Fuck, even he assumed Lucy wouldn’t put them in, he knew Lucy had common decency.

Understanding flitted across Lucy’s face and she looked away. “Oh.”

Wyatt yanked out more chains. “Look, could we not…”

“If he hasn’t figured it out spending nearly 24/7 with you, Wyatt, he’s not going to figure it out by reading one of my books.”

“So you put it in there.” Wyatt dropped the chains and jerked up to standing, which jerked Lucy, which made her glare at him.

“No. I didn’t put—I met you two, and I loved your banter. And I thought, hey, if I was writing this, I’d make it a good snarky slow burn romance… and it just, it grew naturally.” She shrugged. “You’re not going to get together until about the fifth book, though, if it’s any consolation.”

“Yeah, no, you’re writing a fictional version of Flynn and me where we have an epic love story, but you’re going to hold off on us fucking until the fifth book, that’s a huge consolation you’re right Lucy, thanks.”

Lucy glared at him. “Well maybe you wouldn’t be so fucking paranoid about him somehow, while reading the highly fictionalized version of you two where you _time travel_, realizing that you’re in love with him if you actually told him yourself.”

“Oh, please.” Wyatt rolled his eyes. “What, so he can nicely reject me and I can ruin the one good thing I’ve ever managed to earn? I screwed up Jess, I screwed up myself, I screwed up everything, I didn’t screw up him, and I’m not breaking that record.” He tried to fold his arms and couldn’t. Stupid fucking handcuffs. “Maybe you should just own up and ask him out, I know you’ve been dying over him.”

Lucy’s face went scarlet. “I’m not—that’s not the same thing.”

“How isn’t it?”

“I’m a stranger, I’m—you’re in his life, not me. I’m his—he’s my—”

“If you call him your muse like you did in that one interview, Lucy, I will break your precious espresso machine in the break room.”

“No you won’t, Flynn loves it too much,” Lucy replied, her voice snapping like a firecracker. “And you know what we are. I’m writing a book about him, he feels like a zoo animal that I’m observing, I’m not going to lay my feelings on him after I invaded his space and his past without his permission. Or did you forget that I fucked everything up when I read Lorena and Iris’s files? He’s never going to feel that way about me, Wyatt, but he just might feel that way about you if you show him that’s an option.”

Wyatt barked out a harsh laugh, and the both of them viciously dumped out more chains since it was the only way to work out any anger. “Right, because telling the straight guy you like him magically makes him into men. Y’know, hold on, let me call GLAAD, make sure they know about this fascinating development.”

Lucy opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head, angrily dumping out more chains. “You don’t know he’s straight.”

“He’s never once mentioned not being straight.”

“It’s not assume straight until proven otherwise, Wyatt.”

“It is if you’re in fucking Texas,” Wyatt snarled.

Fuck. That was—that was exposing a raw part of himself that he hadn’t planned.

Lucy’s pursed lips relaxed and her eyes gentled. She didn’t say anything, but he could hear the _oh, Wyatt _as if she’d spoken it out loud.

“We’re not in Texas,” she said, her voice quiet.

“Doesn’t change anything.” Wyatt focused back in on the chains. Right. They had to get out. “And if you won’t tell him, then you can’t stand there and lecture me about not telling him.”

Lucy finally, mercifully, went silent.

* * *

“We found the car!” Rufus announced as he ran in. “Abandoned in a warehouse. I reviewed the footage, the person was smart, couldn’t get a look at their face on CCTV.”

“Fuck.” Flynn had been pacing, had had about five cups of coffee, but nothing was helping settle his nerves.

Denise frowned up at the murder board—the white board where they wrote up and posted all their notes, theories, and evidence. There wasn’t much this time around. They had pictures of the victim, the crime scene, and some baggies with the contents of the wastepaper basket, including a torn envelope. “They must have seen something we didn’t. But what?”

_Lucy stood in front of the board, tapping it with her finger, smiling at him. “Where did you get such neat handwriting?”_

_It was such a small, random compliment, but his face was heating up and he could hear his heartbeat, loud and obnoxious in his ears. “Lots of practice.”_

_“Yeah, it’s fucking annoying,” Wyatt said, rolling his eyes fondly from the desk. “Mine looks like I’m doing chicken scratches and this guy’s freewriting calligraphy.”_

_Flynn flipped him off. “I’m going to check on Jiya, see if we’ve gotten anywhere on our vic’s ID.”_

What had they seen, after he left? What had they figured out?

“Fuck this. I’m going to see Jiya.” He left his mug of coffee on the desk.

“It’s not going to be ready yet!” Rufus yelled after him as Denise went to place a phone call in her office—undoubtedly to make this an official missing person’s case. Officer down or missing.

Flynn scrubbed at his face, bile burning in his throat, his shoulders tight. _Officer down or missing._

What if something had happened to them? What if they had gotten hurt? Wyatt would do his best to keep Lucy safe, but Lucy was no blushing violet and Wyatt certainly couldn’t protect her from everything even if she was—just like Lucy couldn’t protect Wyatt from everything. What if it was—

Oh God. It was so irrational but what if it was Keynes? What if he’d—he’d taunted Flynn once, put Wyatt’s life in his hands and he could’ve killed Wyatt at any moment and Flynn knew that, and Keynes knew that Flynn knew that, and he’d fucked Wyatt up mentally for weeks in ways Wyatt still wouldn’t talk to Flynn about—

He practically slammed open the door to the morgue. “We need to do the fingerprints now.”

Jiya, to her credit, didn’t jump upon his sudden entrance. “Hello, Flynn, so nice to see you too, I’m glad to know all my hard work and expertise is appreciated around here.”

Flynn glared at her. “Jiya. Now is not the time.”

One of the things that he generally, usually, loved about Jiya was her ability to stand up to him. Rufus caved like a rotted tree, even though he would make sarcastic comments the entire time. And Flynn couldn’t remember the last time that Wyatt hadn’t done what Flynn ordered when it really came down to it, when Flynn was being serious. Jess was intimidated although she’d never admit it. But Jiya wasn’t intimidated, and she wasn’t annoyed by him either, unlike certain precinct captains he could name. He really appreciated that.

But right now? He wanted her to put a sock in it and just do as he said.

Jiya folded her arms. “It’s very much the time. If I do it now, there’s no guarantee I’ll get a working fingerprint.”

“If you do it later—if you do it later they could be dead, Jiya, they could be—if they aren’t already.” He could hear his accent getting thicker the way it did when he was upset, and he hated it. It made him feel vulnerable and just a little bit stupid, even though he knew Jiya didn’t care, even though he’d been speaking almost exclusively English and living in the United States for two decades, it still—it took him back to his first couple of years here, took him back to when he was first learning and terrified, and out of all the things he needed in that moment, a sudden bout of self-deprecation and insecurity was not it.

Jiya didn’t soften so much as calm, the ocean of storm ready to rage in her banking instead. “I know, Flynn, trust me, I’m aware.” She spoke simply, and to the point. “I can’t imagine what it would feel like for me if it was Rufus. But that’s why I’m here, so I can be the voice of reason when you can’t be, and I’m saying we need to wait.”

Flynn didn’t really pick up on the rest of his, his brain doing a record-scratch on the _if it was Rufus _part of it all. “What?”

Jiya gave him one of those cutting looks that always uncomfortably reminded Flynn of himself. “Flynn… this isn’t the time for denial.”

“Denial about what? Jiya, this is hardly the point—”

Jiya groaned and got the body out of its… well, Flynn was always tempted to just call it ‘the fridge’. “Flynn, Rufus has been texting me, you’ve been reading to claw the walls down.”

“I would be like this for either of you.”

“Not in the same way, you wouldn’t.” Jiya grabbed the man’s hands and took a deep breath, then grabbed her scalpel. “It’s been four years,” she added quietly. “You’re allowed… to want someone in that way.”

Flynn bristled, even as shame stuck in his throat. “That… it’s not that.” Not exactly. “It’s not that I… it’s not that I’m not open, to the idea. In theory.”

“Mmm.” Jiya was focused in on her work, her lips pressed together, her eyes dark, skin pulled taught over her clenched jaw.

True, when he had first come out into the living room one morning to find Wyatt all soft and pink from the shower, his hair sticking up every which-way, humming off-key as he made toast… Flynn had felt guilt. He’d felt a lot of guilt. He had promised to love and honor Lorena for the rest of his life, and he had once thought that there was nobody else in the world he would ever feel that way about. How could he dishonor the memory of her by falling for someone else? And for her half-brother, of all people?

He’d wrestled with it for months. Wondered what Lorena would think, what she would say. Would she be happy for him? Or would she feel abandoned? Did it mean that the love he’d claimed to feel for her was less real, less true, less earnest, than he’d thought it had been?

In the end, it had been a discussion with Denise of all people that had helped. It had been the anniversary of her father’s death, and the two of them had talked about it quietly while finishing up paperwork for the day.

_“While I was sitting there—the cops came, and there was a woman. I didn’t know women could be cops. Ever since then, that was what I wanted to be.”_

_“I think that’s noble. I think he’d be proud.”_

_“I like to think so, too. But who knows. It’s not a very traditional job, for a woman. My mother can be pretty old-fashioned. She still doesn’t know about… about Michelle and the kids. She disapproves enough about my career. I used to drive myself crazy wondering what my dad would think.”_

_“How’d you stop?”_

_“I realized—well, it’s like loving a fictional character almost, isn’t it? Loving someone who’s dead. It’s an entirely one-sided love. The person stops being a real person and starts becoming… at the very least, they’re stagnant. Static. At worst they’re just a blank canvas and you can paint all kinds of crusades in their name. Just look at all the assholes who tout the founding fathers. Your loved one can’t respond when you’re angry, they can’t comfort you when you’re sad, how can you really love someone like that? You can’t. Not really. Not the way you should love someone.”_

His guilt had gotten better since then. Guilt over Lorena’s feelings, anyway. Guilt over his own perceived faithlessness. Flynn wasn’t really good at the whole ‘faith in God’ thing, so he’d always put his faith in people. If he couldn’t count on his faith, his love, in his loved ones then what did he have left?

But guilt over wanting Wyatt—a guy who was either straight or so deeply in the closet Flynn wasn’t even going to try digging in there to yank him out—and Lucy, who saw him as a source of information, Lucy with her dark scared places that she tried so hard to cover up with boisterousness, with glamor, with laughter and champagne. Neither of them wanted that from him. It wasn’t his place to offer it to them, really.

“They don’t like me in that way,” Flynn said at last, when it was clear that even though she was also concentrating on her intense work, Jiya wanted an answer. And it wasn’t lost on him that despite her pushback, she was doing as he’d asked of her.

Jiya didn’t say anything, but her eyebrows shot up into her hairline.

“Wyatt’s straight, or deeply closeted, I can’t figure out which. And Lucy’s… that’s not a priority for her right now.” He couldn’t say more—didn’t want to say more, because it felt like betraying a confidence—but she was still getting over her mother’s death and all the emotions that went with that.

Jiya didn’t say anything, but somehow her eyes got even wider and her expression more incredulous.

“I’m happy for you and Rufus,” Flynn added. “By the way. Since we’re—sort of on the subject. I know I haven’t—said anything about it, really, but. I am happy for you two. You’re good for each other. He makes you laugh.”

Jiya winced as she tore a fingerprint. “Dammit.” She took a deep breath that was clearly forced. “He was scared, you know. That you wouldn’t approve.”

“Why wouldn’t I approve? I can put it in writing if he really wants. Mail him an…” Flynn paused.

Jiya glanced up at him. “Yes?”

“The envelope.” That was it, that was what Wyatt and Lucy had seen!

“What?”

Flynn grabbed her wrist. “The envelope, upstairs, it was in the wastepaper basket—it has a barcode, all envelopes have a barcode—”

“—that tell you where it came from,” Jiya finished. “They must’ve followed the trail from there to wherever they are now.”

Flynn dashed out of the room, just in time to hear Jiya exclaim in realization and frustration, “Wait a minute are you saying I didn’t have to try and get these fucking fingerprints after all!?”

* * *

Lucy was covered in sweat by the time they managed to get the stupid fucking icebox up onto its side so that it was now tall enough to reach the trapdoor in the ceiling.

“Flynn’s gonna laugh his ass off when he finds us,” Wyatt muttered, also covered in sweat. Their wrists were chaffed from the handcuffs, and both of them were panting. God, what she wouldn’t give for some water and food right about now, she was starving.

“You have a lot of faith in him,” Lucy remarked. Wyatt hadn’t once seemed to think that Flynn wouldn’t, somehow, find them. She decided not to comment that when he did find them, Flynn was liable to be a little busy worrying about them and would skip over laughing about their appearance.

Wyatt shrugged, then bent down onto one knee, interlocking his fingers so that Lucy could step up onto them. “There hasn’t been a situation yet that Flynn hasn’t found a way to come through.”

Lucy bent down, thanks to the handcuff keeping her stuck to Wyatt, and managed to step up awkwardly onto his hand. Wyatt stood as she pushed herself up off the ground, enabling her to grab onto the top of the icebox. “He’s not a superhuman, you know.”

Wyatt winced as the handcuff cut into his wrist. Lucy grabbed his hands and used the icebox as leverage to yank him up as Wyatt’s feet found purchase in the side of it, pushing himself up with her. “Yeah, well… sometimes it seems like he is. I know he’s not, fuck, I know better than anyone, but—yeah.” He shrugged. “I had the same problem with Jess, y’know. I l—I care about someone and I put them up on a pedestal.”

He looked oddly relieved as he spoke, and Lucy wondered how hard it had been for him, to be unable to talk about these thoughts with someone, struggling to keep his feelings in. Well, at least now he could talk to her about them. Even if he refused to say anything to Flynn.

Then again, she wasn’t saying anything either. The pot and the kettle were having quite the pleasant conversation now.

“Y’know Jess has forgiven you for all that bullshit, right?” Lucy asked. “She told Amy you’re her best friend.”

“She told Amy that?” Wyatt asked, his head shooting up so fast he nearly lost his balance and fell off the damn icebox. Then he paused. “Hey, how are… y’know…”

“They’re good, I think. I don’t—Amy’s not really, um, the settle down type.” Lucy stood up with Wyatt and tried to reach the trapdoor. Shit, just out of reach. “But she seems to like Jess more than anyone else, I mean, I’ve never seen her like this. Is it—is it weird? Seeing Jess with—with my sister?”

Wyatt winced. “A little? But not in—it’s not a bad thing, I just. Haven’t seen Jess with anyone, and Amy’s…”

“A lot?”

“…yeah. But I’m happy for her. She deserves to be happy and be with someone she actually wants to be with, and Amy seems to make her happy, she makes her laugh, y’know? Jess was stuck with me for two decades, and sometimes I worry that she was just with me for some of it out of—because she felt like she had to be. Like, she’d made her bed, now she had to lie in it.”

Lucy frowned. That didn’t really make sense. “What do you…”

“Hold on.” Wyatt couldn’t reach the door either. “Want me to try lifting you?”

Lucy glanced down at the ground. Then up at the trap door, so close, just barely out of reach.

Well, they’d gotten up onto the icebox, hadn’t they?

She looked back at Wyatt and nodded. “Okay.”

Wyatt crouched down again as best he could, and Lucy climbed up. If she could get the trap door open—

She wasn’t sure how it happened. Maybe she leaned forward too much, or Wyatt didn’t have as good a hold on her as he should’ve, or maybe it was just the fact that they were still stuck together with these damn handcuffs—but she felt herself pitching forward.

Lucy shrieked in surprise as her stomach lurched, gravity gone for a second, and then it was coming back in a painful, terrifying way, and Wyatt was falling too, the icebox, all of it, crashing to the ground, and Lucy screamed again as pain like nothing she’d known before burst in her leg like a firework and then shot up through her body, white-hot, nearly making her pass out.

“Shit!” Wyatt touched her leg and she screamed again.

“Fuck, don’t touch it, don’t touch it!” She couldn’t see properly as tears sprung into her eyes.

“Okay, okay, Lucy, it’s okay.” Wyatt was at his best when comforting someone, she thought dimly, her entire body vibrating with pain. “Your leg is broken, just lie here, don’t move.”

“N-no problem,” she managed.

Wyatt looked around. “There has to be something…”

He got up, and that was when Lucy heard the thump.

It sounded like it came from the other side of the wall. “Um… Wyatt?”

“I heard it too.” Wyatt walked over to the wall. “This was the wall that was thinner.”

“You mean when you were trying to find a secret door like we’re in a damn Nancy Drew novel?”

Wyatt started feeling the wall again. “Well it’s definitely thinner, you have to admit that. I think—” There was a thump from the other side again. “I think there’s someone on the other side,” Wyatt hissed.

“Hello?” Lucy called.

“We’re trapped in here too, it’s okay,” Wyatt said.

There was no verbal answer, but there was definitely… something or someone on the other side.

“I think this is just… it’s not concrete like the other walls,” Wyatt said, yanking at the wall. “It’s plaster and old bricks and stuff, I think I can…”

They needed all the help they could get, and Lucy was pretty sure given their situation—the cage in the house, the chains in the icebox—that they were onto some kind of human trafficking ring here. What if there was some poor terrified girl on the other side?

“Uh…” Wyatt peered through the hole he had made in the wall. His voice was oddly pitched up. “So, Lucy, has, uh, has Jess told Amy and you any… anything about my tendency to act and then think instead of the other way around?”

Lucy managed to prop herself up, her mind screaming at the burst of pain in her leg. “If she’s told Amy, Amy hasn’t told me, why?”

“Because I think I just killed us,” Wyatt said, his voice high-pitched and strangled.

“What?”

From the other side of the wall came a hungry roar and Wyatt scrambled back as fear shot through Lucy and oh—_oh_. She remembered the last bit that the drugs had muddled of her memory, now.

They’d gone to the house they’d found through the envelope’s bar code and found it to be empty except for a large cage in the backyard, and a few pictures of a tiger on the kitchen counter.

Well, there was also the old woman, who had looked viciously happy to see them there.

Wyatt scrambled back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, we are so dead.”

“There’s a wall between us!”

He hurried over to her. “Yeah, a wall made of old plaster and fuck knows what else, and I don’t think they’ve fed that cat in ages, he’s tearing at it like he’s going to swallow us whole.” He grabbed the icebox. “Shit, we gotta block the hole I made, fuck.”

“Wyatt…” She was useless, she couldn’t even move with her leg, they were going to die down here. A single blow from a tiger’s paw to the head could kill a person. Wyatt was still shoving at the icebox, trying to get it over to the wall, a good twenty feet away.

“I can’t move it on my own!” Wyatt yelled, straining.

“I can’t—my leg—”

“It’s not your fault,” Wyatt promised. He kept shoving. “C’mon, c’mon…”

“Help!” Lucy began screaming. “Help! Someone! Please!”

She didn’t really think anyone would hear them, but there was always a chance—these animal smugglers (and something about that rang a bell but she couldn’t focus on it now) hadn’t kill them. They’d drugged them (tranquilizer, probably) and stuck them in this room but that was it. Surely if they wanted these two interlopers dead they would’ve actually killed them the way they had the guy in the motel (the trucker motel, oh, was he a trucker, did he help them move the animals?) but they hadn’t. Maybe, just maybe, one of the smugglers would be listening, would hear them and help…

Lucy screamed again as Wyatt strained, shoved, the tiger on the other side renewing its efforts, fuck they were going to die, they were so going to die—

And then she heard it.

Gunfire.

* * *

Flynn should’ve known that the animal smugglers whose business they’d interrupted when they’d investigated the pet store would come back with a vengeance. He’d given information on them to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, but these assholes were obviously on a whole other level. They had automatic weapons, for one thing, although he probably shouldn’t put too much stock in that, they’d probably just waltzed into a gun store in, oh, half the states in the U.S. to buy those.

“Let Denise handle them!” Rufus yelled, ducking behind a counter. Denise was outside with the entire damn squad. He yanked Flynn back. “We have to find Lucy and Wyatt, that’s our priority, Flynn.”

Flynn shook him off, getting off another round at the old lady who ran this thing, before he tucked his gun into its holster and did as Rufus said. Lucy and Wyatt. Were they even still alive? He’d checked the rooms, that was how he’d run into the smugglers and ended up exchanging gunfire, but there was no sign of either of his partners and panic was clawing at his throat like a tiger. Had they met the same end as that sucker in the motel? Drugged and disoriented, helpless, suffocated in plastic like—like less than animals, fuck—

Rufus froze. “Did you hear that?”

Flynn paused.

_Help!_

It was muffled, high-pitched and terrified, but it sounded like…

“Lucy!?” Flynn tore through the house, trying to find the source. Why did she sound so far away?

_Flynn!?_

He stopped, and looked down at the ground.

The floor, a trapdoor—of course, fuck, he was an idiot.

He ran back into the main room, the living room, and yanked up the rug.

Underneath was a huge trap door.

Flynn yanked it up, yelling for Rufus, and peered down. “Lucy!”

“Flynn!” Lucy’s voice was loud, hysterical. “Flynn! Flynn! We’re in here!”

He crouched down and his heart leapt up into his throat, strangling it.

Lucy was lying on the ground almost directly underneath the trap door, tears streaking her face, which was so pale she looked almost green. Her right leg was splayed out at an unnatural angle, and next to her, shoving with all his might at some kind of large metal box—wait, were they handcuffed together, what the fuck—was Wyatt.

They both looked up at the sound of the trap door opening, relief shining in both of their eyes. “Flynn!” Lucy cried out, her voice cracking. She sounded exhausted.

“Her leg is broken!” Wyatt yelled. “Get her out, get her out now!”

“What the hell?” Rufus asked, peering over Flynn’s shoulder.

“There’s a tiger!” Wyatt yelled. “Do I look like I’ve got time to explain!?”

Rufus disappeared. Flynn prepared to swing down. “Hold on, I’m coming.”

“It’s going to kill us, Flynn, don’t just jump in here with it!” Lucy yelled. “And if you shoot it I swear—”

“The thing is about to eat you and you don’t want me to shoot it!?”

“Not with bullets I don’t! It’s not the poor tiger’s fault!”

“Lucy, I swear to God…”

“Move!” Rufus yelled, shoving Flynn out of the way as the tiger—oh holy fucking shit that was an actual tiger—managed to shove its way through the wall.

Rufus fired once, twice, and the tiger sort of… froze. Then it stumbled, staggered, and fell, two tranquilizer darts in its shoulder.

Flynn stared up at Rufus, who was holding a tranquilizer gun. Rufus shrugged. “While you were running around looking for these two idiots, one of us actually did a proper sweep of the kitchen.”

Wyatt slumped to the ground, looking like he’d passed out in relief. Lucy tried to move and them whimpered in pain. “Can—can one of you please get us out of here?”

Flynn felt a little like passing out himself. “Yeah, yeah, Jess and Denise are outside with the team, let me just…”

They got a ladder, and Flynn found himself shaking as he reached the bottom and was able to touch the two of them. They both looked pale and sweaty, and Lucy was starting to shake with pain, but both of them hugged Flynn for all they were worth.

Wyatt buried his face into Flynn’s shoulder and didn’t say anything, just held on tightly, while Lucy babbled, explaining how they’d gotten here, how they’d woken up and couldn’t remember jack shit, how her leg had been broken. Rufus got his keys and undid the handcuffs, leading both Wyatt and Lucy to sigh in relief, and Flynn finally, gently, pushed Wyatt away so that he could carry Lucy up the ladder to the paramedics.

She felt incredibly small in his arms, not very heavy, her fingers twisting in the collar of his shirt as she got his shoulder wet. “’m sorry,” she mumbled. Her eyes were glassy, from the pain, Flynn figured, and thought it a miracle that she hadn’t passed out yet. “It hurts.”

“Don’t apologize. You can stop apologizing, Lucy.” For finding Lorena and Iris’s files, for crying on him, for her existence—she didn’t have to be sorry.

Lucy held on a little tighter. “He never doubted you’d find us,” she whispered. “Wyatt. One of the first things he said was that you’d come for us.”

Flynn got up into the house, where the EMTs were waiting. “Wyatt’s loyal,” was all he said.

Lucy scrambled to hold onto him as the paramedics got her, and Flynn took her hand, squeezing as she was put onto the stretcher. “She’s also dehydrated,” he told them. Lucy wouldn’t let go of his hand, so he didn’t try to detangle himself. His chest ached in so many different ways, it felt like he was being ripped in half.

Wyatt staggered out a second later, looking just about dead on his feet. “I thought we were dead,” he croaked, slumping against Flynn.

“Where is he!?” It was Jess. “I’m gonna fucking murder him! Tell him I’m gonna fucking murder him!”

“Hide me,” Wyatt whispered, jumping behind Flynn as the crowd parted and Jess emerged, her face red with fury.

“You little piece of shit, you’re supposed to call it in when you’re going somewhere!” she hollered, her voice wet and thick, and then she was hugging Wyatt so fiercely he nearly fell over.

“Is this your way of saying you’d miss me if I was gone?” Wyatt asked, tentatively hugging her back.

Jess looked like she was hugging him tight enough to strangle him. “You fucker,” was all she said in reply.

Wyatt tightened his hold on her. “Yeah, I love you too, Jess.”

“We need to get her to the hospital. Sir? Sir?”

Flynn tore his gaze away from Wyatt and looked up at the paramedic. “We need to put her in the ambulance,” the woman said, and Flynn realized he was being told this because he was still holding onto Lucy’s hand. Or maybe she was holding onto his. Maybe it was both.

“Ride with me?” Lucy asked. Her voice was barely a whisper and her face was still horribly pale.

Flynn nodded.

Lucy tightened her grip on his fingers until he thought she was in danger of breaking them, but he held in his wince. He didn’t want her to let go.

* * *

Lucy woke up to someone holding her hand.

She managed to move her head, feeling groggy, unsure of where she was—and panic laced through her. The last time she’d woken up like this she—

She blinked, and the room swam into focus. Hospital. Hospital room.

It was over, she was safe.

Lucy blinked a few more times, and turned her head a bit more, to find Amy napping next to her, holding her hand.

She told herself she wasn’t disappointed. “Amy?”

Amy blinked, tightening her hold on Lucy, and then sat up. “Oh shit, you’re awake!”

Lucy managed a smile. “Ta-da.”

Amy tackled her, mindful of Lucy’s leg, and Lucy noticed as she brought her other arm up that her wrist was also bandaged. “You scared the shit out of me,” Amy whispered. “God, Luce, don’t do that again, please. I get a call from Flynn and he sounds like he’s had his fucking guts ripped out and then Jess is rushing out and nobody’s telling me anything and next thing I hear is that you’re in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry.” She hugged Amy as tightly as she could—her limbs still felt rather heavy and limp. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Amy’s chest shook but she made no sound, and Lucy winced. Amy’d had to watch first Dad, then Mom die. Lucy didn’t want to hurt her sister like that.

At last Amy pulled away, wiping at her eyes. “I should, uh, let the others know you’re awake.”

“The others?”

The door opened and Jess stuck her head in. “Hey, baby, I brought—”

She paused, stared at Lucy, and then raised her voice. “Hey, dummies, get your asses in here and quit moping.”

Jess pushed the door open further, walking in with a coffee that she handed to Amy as Wyatt and Flynn rushed in—while trying to look like they weren’t rushing.

“Hey,” Wyatt managed, staring at her. Flynn didn’t manage anything at all.

“Hey,” Lucy replied, smiling. She held up her bandaged wrist. “Next time, we’re using the fuzzy handcuffs, mmkay?”

Wyatt flushed as Jess burst out laughing. Lucy felt her chest unknotting a bit as Wyatt and Flynn walked over and Wyatt took her hand, showing off his own bandaged wrist. “Deal.”

Flynn sat on the edge of the bed, obviously being careful with his broad, lanky frame, his hand hovering just over the knee on her undamaged leg. “You okay?” he asked, his voice hushed, reverent.

Lucy nodded. “I’m okay.”

Flynn’s hand hovered a moment more, then settled onto her knee, and it wasn’t much, but it felt like something more, something huge and monumental, as the bones of his fingers fit around the curve and divots of her leg. His other hand was on Wyatt’s shoulder—ostensibly for leverage, but Lucy was sure he could’ve found another spot to hold onto if he’d wanted.

Wyatt squeezed her hand, his index finger on her inner wrist, on her pulse, and Lucy squeezed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on Cuffed (4x10). I encourage you all to listen to "Give a Little Love" by Mostar Diving Club, which played at the end of the episode and is such a soft happy song I think I listened to it on repeat for a month straight.


	5. Chapter 5

“Two more weeks!?” Lucy moaned. “Two weeks is an eternity!”

“Well, you could always be working on those novel revisions…” Amy said, walking past.

“Says the woman who is abandoning me on my birthday weekend.”

“You were supposed to be in Bora Bora with friends!” Amy finished throwing things into a suitcase. “Jess is really excited about this weekend, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I get it.” Lucy pouted at her. “It’s just you leaving… for the birthday… of your sister… your only sister… your lovely… lovely sister…”

“It’s a spa trip, Lucy.” Amy kissed her on the cheek. “Not a guilt trip! See you in a few days!”

She waltzed out of front door, then swung back. “Boys, please, look after her.”

“I don’t need looking after,” Lucy said at the same moment that Wyatt and Flynn both said, “We will.”

Amy winked and then vanished.

Mason sighed. “I trust you gentlemen won’t let her kill you both out of stir craziness?”

“Connor,” Lucy whined. “Don’t leave me! Nobody pampers me like you do!”

“I pamper!” Wyatt protested.

“You pamper too much,” Flynn noted.

“Says the man who made her oven-puffed pancakes this morning,” Wyatt retorted. “What even are oven-puffed pancakes!?”

“You take the batter and—”

“You’re in quite capable hands,” Mason said smoothly, petting Lucy’s hair. “I’ll be back after the workshop is finished! Have fun you crazy kids!”

“Fun!?” Lucy shouted after him. “I can’t scratch my knee and it itches constantly! I’ll show you fun!”

Mason closed the door behind him with a cheery wave.

Lucy wheeled her wheelchair around. It had been hell to learn how to use it, and she had come to realize just how little upper body strength she had, but now she could maneuver around the apartment just fine. She did have crutches as well, but the doctor had advised her to stick with the wheelchair while in the house, and that she could upgrade to crutches full-time in two weeks.

Two weeks was a goddamn _eternity_.

“Please don’t kill me for saying this,” Wyatt said as Lucy wheeled around to face them, “but you look really cute right now.”

“I’ll show you cute,” Lucy muttered darkly. “Gonna be real cute when I murder you in your sleep.”

“How?” Wyatt asked, because he clearly had no sense of self-preservation. “I’m sleeping up in Amy’s room so you’d have to get up the stairs on your—”

Lucy ran over his foot. Wyatt swore loudly.

“Look, we have to go into court,” Flynn said. “Over that whole BDSM case. We can’t check our phones, technically, but we’ll have them on us so if anything goes wrong—you can text us. And we’ll be off all weekend. So just hold out for one day, _one _day, and we’ll entertain each other to your heart’s content. You can read us whatever ridiculous new thing you’ve got our alter egos doing in your novel, okay?”

“I can tell when you’re placating me.”

The corner of Flynn’s mouth quirked upward. “And I can tell that you’re pouting for the sake of it. Be good, all right?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “I’ll just languish away here! All by myself!”

Flynn didn’t turn around as he headed for the door, just waving. Wyatt walked backwards mouthing _I’m sorry_, and then he was closing the door, and was gone.

Ugh.

Lucy reluctantly rolled her wheelchair back into her office. She really did need to work on some revisions, or her editor would kill her, slowly, and she wanted to actually have free time this weekend so she could hang out with Wyatt and Flynn without feeling guilty. It would be the first time she’d hang out with just the two of them for an extended period of time, and she wanted to see if the third-wheel feeling set in. It hadn’t, so far, but hanging around solving a case together, or grabbing a quick meal while working, or having everyone over at her apartment, was different. Wyatt claimed that she had a better chance with Flynn than he did but Wyatt was blind and an idiot, and she really didn’t see how that was true.

Would she really enjoy being with just the two of them? Or would she find herself misplaced, swept aside, awkward and feeling out of step compared to their years of easy camaraderie and intimacy?

Ugh. Lucy managed to get herself around the desk but jostled it, sending the binoculars Amy had left her as a gag gift tumbling onto the floor. Great.

She managed to pick them up by basically contorting her body, then glanced out the window.

Hmmm.

She really shouldn’t go full _Rear Window_, but…

Lucy raised the binoculars to her eyes, staring at the windows of the apartment across the street.

There was a couple arguing in front of a computer, papers strewn everywhere. Writers, Lucy was guessing.

Across a few windows was a maid, opening a drawer and—taking cash out of it, sliding it into her pocket.

“Hell yeah, stick it to ‘em,” Lucy muttered.

She moved her binoculars down and to the right, looking at the lower level.

And in that one apartment…

Lucy laughed. “Aww.”

A young man, mid-twenties it looked like, looking very dapper in a suit jacket and hat, was knocking on the door of the apartment. The moment it was opened by the young woman she yanked him in, kissing him passionately.

Young love. Of course, Lucy wasn’t exactly old herself, she was only in her mid-thirties, but still. Sometimes she felt a century away from the spirited, carefree sort of feeling that those two must be experiencing right then. Sometimes, in fact, it felt like she’d never really gotten to experience that at all. Thanks, Mom.

“Oh to be young and underemployed,” Lucy mused, watching as the girl began to lead the boy to the bedroom. “Have fun, you crazy kids.”

She moved the binoculars to the left again, intending to look at the apartment across the hallway, when she saw—

Oh man.

Another man, this one looking a bit stressed, dressed in a business suit, was walking over to the apartment and… and opening it with a key!

“That better be your brother, missy,” Lucy grumbled.

Judging by the way the couple in the bedroom freaked out when the front door closed, Lucy was guessing he was not her brother.

Not to mention it was a one-bedroom apartment.

The couple sprang into action, the girl shoving the guy under the bed, re-tying her dress, fixing her hair, and shoving everything back into place right as the boyfriend walked in.

“Close call,” Lucy said. Damn, she’d thought for certain they would get caught.

The girl kissed her boyfriend hello and Lucy snorted. “Really? You’re going to kiss him? After all that?”

The boyfriend went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and the girl yanked her boy toy out from under the bed, shoving him out of the apartment.

While the girl was still closing the front door, the boyfriend emerged from the bathroom—and paused. He bent down.

Lucy’s breath caught as she saw him stand back up, the other man’s hat in his hand.

“Oh you are _so _busted.”

* * *

“Do you really think she’ll be okay?” Wyatt asked as he and Flynn headed to the court room.

“She’ll be fine.”

“Should we have left her alone, though.”

“She’s a grown woman, Wyatt,” Flynn replied, yanking the door to the court room open and holding it for Wyatt to walk through. “And she’s Lucy. It’ll be fine, it’ll all work out. Besides.” He paused to nod at the bailiff. “What’s she going to do, spy on the neighbors all day?”

* * *

Lucy had been spying on the couple all day.

So far, the guy hadn’t said anything about the hat. He was obviously suspicious, and kept glancing at her, looking upset, but he wasn’t bringing it up.

By now the two of them were making dinner. The girl was chopping up vegetables for some kind of pasta dish, and the boyfriend was opening and closing the fridge mindlessly.

“Oh, here it comes,” Lucy muttered. She should’ve gotten popcorn.

The boyfriend closed the fridge and said something. The girl snapped back at him. They sniped back and forth—and God what Lucy wouldn’t give to be able to hear them—and then the girl went into the bedroom, where the curtains had been drawn.

The boyfriend stared after her… and then glanced down at the knife where the woman had been chopping vegetables.

Oh no.

“No, no don’t do it!” Lucy yelled as the guy grabbed the knife and followed the girl into the bedroom. “Don’t! Don’t do it!”

She watched, helpless, as something—something that looked a lot like a body—slammed against the closed curtains… and then sank to the floor.

* * *

Wyatt rubbed at his temples as Denise handed him the file. “We just got out of court, captain, please?”

“It’s your jurisdiction,” Denise said. “Tessa Horton, aged twenty-nine, roommate came home from a weekend away to find her strung with barbed wire to the ceiling.”

Wyatt stared at her. “You’re kidding me. Can’t Rufus take the freaky case!?”

“Rufus is down a partner since Jess is out of town for the weekend. You and Flynn can handle it.”

Wyatt groaned as Denise walked away and Flynn walked up. “What’s got you all in a twist?”

Wyatt handed him the file. “Apparently we’ve got a body, Jiya wants us over there. Denise is putting us on the case.”

Flynn closed his eyes and Wyatt could practically hear the guy as he mentally counted to ten. “Fine. Fine, I’ll just call…”

His phone rang.

“…Lucy,” Flynn finished, staring at the caller ID.

Wyatt listened in as Flynn answered. “Hey, Lucy, we’re just—what? A murder?”

Wyatt raised his eyebrows as Flynn listened. It sounded like Lucy was pretty upset. Had they made the right choice, leaving her alone?

“Yeah, no, of course. Listen—listen Wyatt and I just got put on a case. We have to go check it out. But I’ll send Rufus to you, and he’ll investigate, sound good? Okay.” Flynn sounded the way he did when he was consoling the relatives of victims, which Lucy obviously didn’t appreciate going by the way her voice rose in pitch.

Wyatt winced.

“Okay. Right. No, we’ll be home as soon as we can. Rufus is the best, Lucy, you know that, he’ll check it out. Okay. Bye.”

Flynn hung up and called out to Rufus, who was finishing out paperwork on his desk. “Hey, Rufus? Lucy called, can you help her out? Wyatt and I were supposed to be there but we got a case at the last minute.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“You know what to do?”

“Of course.” Rufus stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Does this look like my first rodeo?”

Wyatt looked at Flynn. “Time to investigate a creepy cult murder.”

“I checked with CSU,” Jiya said when they got there. “There were prints in the hallway but the apartment was spotless. Someone wiped it down very thoroughly.”

Wyatt swallowed hard when he saw the body. Tessa Horton was short, about five foot five inches, with thick dark brunette hair, an angular face…

He knew it was stupid but he couldn’t help but feel… she looked a lot like Lucy. He’d thought, nonsensically, that it _was _Lucy when he first walked into the room and looked up to see Tessa’s body tied up like that. Hung with barbed wire, that was… who did something like that?

“Well, whoever did this was strong,” Flynn noted, looking up at the ceiling where the girl had been suspended. “She weighed at least a hundred pounds.”

“How’d you know?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn gestured at the girl’s body. “It’s called simple math, Wyatt.”

“How much do I weigh, then?”

“Enough for me to pick your ass up and haul it if you don’t get out of my way.”

Wyatt ignored the flush of heat that shot through him and stepped aside for Flynn to crouch down beside the body of Tessa Horton. “What’s this on her forehead?” Flynn asked.

“I don’t know.” Jiya shrugged, writing down notes. “But it must’ve been important, if the person took time to carve it onto her forehead. They seem to have used a razor. It wasn’t how she died, though. That was strangulation, with a rope.”

Wyatt shuddered. What a fucking awful way to go. “Were there any signs of forced entry?” he asked.

CSU guy shook his head. “None.”

Wyatt looked at Flynn. “So odds are high she knew her killer.”

Flynn sighed, as if to say, _I wish I could say I was surprised. _Wyatt understood. Most murders were intimate, done by someone who knew the victim. It was such an awful betrayal, to have someone you trusted, and thought you knew, do something like that to you. Especially something as awful as this.

“Let’s interview the roommate,” Flynn said, standing. “If the victim knew the killer, odds are so did the roommate.”

Wyatt nodded in agreement.

* * *

Rufus frowned at Lucy as she told him about the murder. “So you didn’t actually see any body.”

“No, no, but… but he was moving stuff around, and I saw him cleaning off his hands, they were covered in red!” She’d been glued to the window all evening, waiting for Rufus to show up.

“And you watched the window the entire time?” Rufus asked.

“Ninety percent of it?” she’d had to call Flynn, and go to the bathroom, and get some water, but…

Rufus sighed. “Okay, but if I go over there and the girlfriend answers the door, you owe me dinner.”

Lucy watched, heart in her throat, as Rufus went across the street and knocked on the apartment door. This whole time, she hadn’t seen the girlfriend emerge from the still-closed bedroom. What else was the red supposed to be? And at one point the boyfriend had stripped down to his underwear, put on a gas mask and gloves, and gone back into the bedroom. What could that mean except that he was cleaning up the body and the bloodstains? Most people didn’t realize that dead bodies could be toxic to you and could get you sick, but this guy must’ve done his homework. Lucy wondered if he’d been planning on murdering her for some time, and the timing was the only spontaneous thing, or if he’d just snapped and had done some real good Google research on how to take care of the aftermath.

The boyfriend answered the door for Rufus, smiling and polite. He was back in clothes again, this time a soft-looking pair of sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt. The kind of clothes, Lucy couldn’t help but notice, that you would wear if you were doing dirty work and didn’t mind if they got stained because you could throw them out or use bleach on them.

She watched as Rufus walked in and said a few things to the guy. The guy nodded, then led Rufus back into the bedroom. Lucy waited… and waited… and waited…

Oh, God, was he attacking Rufus too? Was Rufus in danger? Had she put him in danger?

Rufus emerged from the room and glanced at the window, towards Lucy. He must’ve known she was watching, because he shook his head while the guy’s back was turned.

Dammit.

When Rufus got back to the apartment Lucy rolled herself over to him. “And?”

“Well, he said that there was an argument and that he learned his girlfriend was cheating,” Rufus confirmed. “But he said that she packed a few things and left, went to her mother’s.”

“But he just said that, how do you know—”

“I searched the house, and I didn’t find a body,” Rufus cut in. “And I talked to the girlfriend on the phone. She’s fine.”

…oh.

“You weren’t watching the window the entire time,” Rufus pointed out. “Now—I’m not saying that maybe he didn’t get a little rough with her, if you saw something or someone get thrown against the window. But I can promise you, the girlfriend’s not dead, and there’s not a body in that apartment. Okay?”

Lucy sighed, then handed him the phone. “Order your dinner, you buzzkill.”

“Only you would call the happy conclusion of no murder a buzzkill,” Rufus grumbled, but he took the phone and dialed their favorite Thai place.

* * *

Rufus called Jiya after he left Lucy. She seemed to be in much better spirits by the time he left, and he was sure she’d been lonely all day. He told her if she was going to keep spying on the neighbors to just be careful so nobody slapped her with a restraining order, just to be safe. You couldn’t be too careful with this kind of thing.

Jiya picked up after the second ring. “You better have brought me leftovers.”

Rufus chuckled, and rustled the bag of leftover Thai takeout so that Jiya could hear it. “Yup, on my way.” He got into the car, nodding at some pedestrians who passed. The pedestrians nodded back but looked a little skittish.

He really hated that. No matter where he was, even in nicer neighborhoods, even with white people who, you know, had the least to fear from a cop, people were all stiff around him. They just saw the uniform, the badge, and they knew what that meant—and Rufus couldn’t blame them. _Serve and protect_? What a joke.

“Rufus?” He realized that Jiya had said something else, something he’d missed.

“Sorry.” He started the car, put his phone on speaker, and put on his seatbelt. “I just got lost in thought.”

“Is it about… about the force?”

Jiya was the only person he’d talked to so far, and he knew he had to talk to someone else, someone who wasn’t police, but who? Not Lucy, as much as he liked her. He wasn’t sure she could really understand. She’d come from money, from academia, and was white. She lived in a penthouse, for crying out loud. She was his friend, but Rufus wasn’t sure that she could understand.

He’d think of someone.

“Yeah.” Rufus pulled out of his parking spot and headed for Jiya’s apartment. “I just… I want to make a difference, and I thought, hey, well, you can’t sit there and complain that all cops are white if you don’t do something to make it less white. You can’t complain that cops are all drunk on authority and trigger happy if you don’t find good people to be cops. I thought… you know, being a force for good in the system, that was a good idea—I know that was Denise’s train of thought, but Jiya, I’m just, I’m so sick of how people look at me.”

“I know, babe.”

He loved it when she called him those little nicknames. Rufus didn’t think Jiya really noticed when she did it, which made it all the better.

“But I have no idea what else I would do with my life.”

“You could always go back to school. You’re never too old to go to college.”

“Yeah, and rack up a bunch of student debt at my age? No way.” At least being a cop gave him a good salary to look after Mom and Kevin, help Kevin get ready for a good college so he could be a comic book artist.

“You could become a rapper, you’re good at that.”

“Freestyling in your kitchen at two in the morning does not mean I should make a career out of it.”

Jiya laughed and even through the phone it was the best damn sound that Rufus had ever heard. “We can talk about it more when you get here. Or we can see if you’re still willing to get your ass kicked at Mario Kart.”

“You are so on. I’ll be there in a few.” Rufus hung up, biting down on the _I love you _that threatened to spill out. He wasn’t sure if they were there yet, for saying that endearment so freely and naturally, as they said goodbye.

He wasn’t sure about a lot of things, right now.

* * *

Flynn nodded along patiently as they spoke to Tessa’s roommate. “Did Tessa have any friends she would’ve been out with?” he asked, trying to keep his tone gentle. He passed her some more tissues. “Or a boyfriend, perhaps?”

Tessa’s roommate wiped at her eyes, which were blotchy with tears. “Tessa was really quiet, withdrawn. I had to drag her out of the house to go places. She wouldn’t—she wouldn’t have gone out anywhere w-without me…”

Wyatt came back into the room and handed Tessa’s roommate the water he’d left to fetch her. The woman took a few steadying gulps. “There was, um, there was… she had mentioned, the last, um, six weeks or so, a guy.”

“Six weeks?”

The roommate nodded. “Yeah, um, I remember it was six weeks because right before I went away for the weekend, Tessa told me that he’d said they were going to do something special to celebrate it. That was the kind of guy he was. He’d wine and dine her, took her out to the theatre. Bought her jewelry. She’d never… she told me she’d never been treated like that before. Like she was precious.” This started a fresh bout of crying. “She was precious, she was—she was so sweet, and kind.”

Flynn thought of Tessa, dead. Small, beautiful, brunette. Thought about Lucy, all alone in her apartment, not even Amy or Mason there this weekend, helpless with her broken leg.

“If I’d just been there,” the roommate went on. “If I’d _been _there, this never would’ve…”

“You can’t go that route,” Flynn said. He reached out, offering his hand. Sometimes in grief, people wanted to be touched. Sometimes that was the last thing they wanted.

The girl took his hand, and he squeezed it gently. “Listen. I know what it’s like. What you’re thinking right now, all the ways that you could’ve stopped it. But people like that, they don’t let that stop them, not really. The killer just would’ve found another way to get to her. You can’t blame yourself. The only person at fault here is the killer.”

The roommate nodded, whispering _thank you _and squeezing his hand so hard, Flynn knew her nails would leave marks. It was all right. Sometimes this felt like the only part of his job he got right: understanding the grief of the ones left behind.

“Anything else you could tell us about the boyfriend?” Wyatt interjected, his voice rough but gentle. Wyatt was at his best when he was allowed to be gentle.

The roommate gently retracted her hand from Flynn and took another few sips of water. “Um, he was rich. I think. He had to be to get theatre tickets.”

_Or he had a friend in the theatre business_, Flynn thought. Not out of the realm of possibility, especially in NYC.

“He said he had… a roommate, or something, someone who… he couldn’t ever bring her over to his place, because the other person wouldn’t like it.” The roommate shrugged. “I don’t know, Tessa said that he felt awkward about it.”

Wyatt nodded, making notes. “Okay. We’ll look into this. We’re going to have to treat your apartment as a crime scene for a while, is there a place you can stay?”

“Um, my girlfriend and her roommates would let me stay with them, I think.”

“If you just give us that address so we can reach you, we’ll let you go.” Flynn gave her a small, knowing smile. “You’ve had a long night. Thank you.”

Wyatt glanced at him once the roommate left. “What do you think?”

“I think we need to do our research. The lack of fingerprints? The apartment wiped clean? The way she was strung up? The… the ritual of it? This person knows what they’re doing. I’d bet you they’ve killed before.” Flynn frowned, thinking back over Tessa’s boddy again.

“What is it?”

He shook his head. “That symbol looked familiar to me, that’s all. But I can’t place it.”

“Well, if this guy’s killed before, then maybe he did the same thing, and you saw it in the database.” Wyatt stood up. “I think we’ve gotten all we can for now. I think we should check on Lucy.”

Lucy. Of course. “Good idea.”

He could use a break from death, anyway.

* * *

Wyatt’s eyebrows rose as he listened to Lucy’s story. In the kitchen, Flynn was making hot cocoa.

Flynn made the best fucking hot cocoa. Milk and chocolate mix went into it, sure, but so did some other stuff and Flynn would never fucking tell him what it was, but it was so good Wyatt had gotten addicted to it their first winter together and pestered Flynn for it all the time since. There was cinnamon in it, that much he’d figured out, at least.

Lucy just called it “orgasm cocoa” and Wyatt pretended he didn’t see Flynn blushing bright red whenever she requested it.

Wyatt found himself in an odd position with Flynn and Lucy. Normally he felt that ugly brush of jealousy whenever he saw someone crushing on Flynn (and boy, did people crush on Flynn, far more often than Flynn ever realized). It was just a bit, because he could always see that Flynn wasn’t interested in return.

Now, he had Lucy, and Lucy was definitely… well Wyatt didn’t want to presume when she hadn’t quite _said_, but it was more than just a passing crush on Flynn, that was for sure. And Flynn had more than just a passing crush on her. But Wyatt didn’t feel jealous. He just felt… left out.

“Lucy,” he said, bringing himself back to the present moment as he realized that Lucy was wrapping up her story, “did it occur to you that maybe you were bored? How many of your painkillers have you had?”

“I was not high on painkillers,” Lucy replied.

“You were on them, though. And you have an active imagination.”

Flynn walked over with the hot cocoa, settling on the easy chair. “What’s this about?”

“Lucy thinks she saw a murder.”

“I did see a murder. Just because Wyatt thinks I’m a lunatic…”

“Rufus checked the apartment! He didn’t find anything! He said the guy was cleaning up mold!”

“I don’t buy it!” Lucy replied. “I know that something fishy went down in that apartment and I’m not going to give up until I figure it out.”

“You’re going to not get yourself arrested, is what you’re going to do,” Flynn said mildly.

“Oh, like you would stop if you were in my shoes.”

Flynn sipped at his cocoa. “Huh.” He closed his eyes. “Sorry, it’s just taking me a lot of imagination to picture being that short.”

“I’m going to break _your _leg for that,” Lucy muttered.

Wyatt settled back against the couch, grinning into his mug. Yeah, he didn’t know what it was with Lucy and Flynn, how he felt, he just knew… he didn’t ever want to lose out on this.

* * *

Flynn would kill her if he found out that she’d gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and nearly banged her cast on the wall five times trying to get back to the window, but it didn’t matter.

She was going to find out what happened in that apartment if it killed her.

Lucy carefully watched the apartment all night. Hmm. The guy was pacing a lot, and didn’t seem happy. When he finally went to sleep, it was on the couch. Why would he sleep on the couch when there was a perfectly good bed in the bedroom?

Maybe the body was hiding in the bed, under, say, lumpy blankets so Rufus didn’t realize it was more than just an unmade bed. Maybe it was just the guilt eating at him. Maybe…

“Were you here all night?”

Lucy started up from sleep, a crick in her neck immediately making itself known. She winced, rubbing at it.

Flynn was staring down at her, arms folded.

Lucy felt a little sheepish, but not enough to back down. “He was up all night, and he slept on the couch. The couch! Something is up.”

Flynn glanced at the apartment across the way, then took the binoculars from her. “Lucy, I get that you’re bored here stuck by yourself, alone, and I get that you miss us, but if there was really a body, wouldn’t Rufus have found it?”

Lucy tried to ignore the hot, sick feeling of betrayal in her throat. “I can’t believe you don’t believe me.” _You of all people._

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “I think that you did see something. I just think that you’re coming to the wrong conclusion about it because you have no case to solve and you’re stuck on your writing.”

“Sure.” Lucy wheeled the wheelchair past him, into the kitchen. She needed some damn coffee.

Flynn walked past her to the coffee maker. “I can get that.”

“I’m not a child,” Lucy snapped, more sharply than she’d intended.

Flynn paused. “I know that you’re not.”

“I’m sorry.” Fuck. She rubbed at her temples. Flynn wasn’t her mother. Flynn didn’t think she was delicate. Flynn didn’t try to shelter her. “You always make better coffee anyway.”

Flynn started the coffee maker. “Your leg will be better before you know it,” he said quietly. “These things always heal faster than you expect, even if you spend the entire time wondering why it’s taking so long.”

“I just hate being like… like this. Helpless. My mom would’ve had a field day with this. Pampered me—smothered me—constantly.”

“You’re more than what your mother tried to make you.” Flynn got mugs out of the dishwasher and then eggs out of the fridge for breakfast.

“Mmm. But you don’t take it seriously when I tell you I saw a murder.”

“I… I take you seriously, Lucy. It’s not that I don’t take you, or this, seriously.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” It occurred to her that they were perhaps talking about more than just this one instance. “I know I… I don’t make it easy for people to get to know me.”

“No, I think you do.” Flynn cracked the eggs into a bowl. “I just think people choose not to see it. I think you’re… I think you’re a very, ah, open person.” The _and I’m not _went unspoken, but she heard it anyway—she felt that she was meant to hear it anyway.

“I think you’re very open. You always say what you’re thinking.”

Flynn said something that sounded suspiciously like _but not what I’m feeling_.

Before Lucy could ask him to repeat himself, there were footsteps on the stairs. “Oh my God are you making omelets?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Doesn’t mean I’m making any for you,” he replied, but he winked at Lucy like they were sharing a secret, his eyes shining, and Lucy couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Flynn this lighthearted. Possibly never.

If this was what Wyatt got to see every morning, then no wonder Wyatt was in love with him.

She was halfway there herself.

* * *

Seeing as Flynn and Wyatt might have had a point about the whole murder thing, Lucy decided to call Amy while the boys were out grocery shopping after Flynn had made breakfast and announced that the state of her fridge was ‘deplorable’.

She should’ve seen it coming, but it still surprised her when Jess answered.

“Hey, Lucy.” Jess sounded more relaxed than Lucy had ever heard her. “You want to talk to Amy, I’m guessing.”

“Um, yeah, if you could… I mean, wait!”

She could practically hear Jess pausing, that expectant and yet somehow challenging look on her face, her head tilted, her eyes gazing steadily at the person speaking.

“I just, um, wanted to see… how things were? How Amy is? You two?”

“Are you asking me how my relationship with your sister is going?”

“I suppose I am.”

There was another pause. “It’s going well. She’s a good person, your sister. She reminds me of you sometimes. In ways I don’t expect. But she’s not like you at all.”

“Amy was always the… the brave one. The fun one.”

Jess hummed. “You’re brave too, Lucy.”

“Amy doesn’t always open up the way she should,” Lucy blurted out. “She—she keeps people at arms’ length. But she does care. I promise you that.”

There was a third pause, this one a bit awkward. “Thank you,” Jess said. “I’ll pass the phone over now.”

Lucy could’ve brained her head against the wall at her own idiocy.

* * *

Wyatt and Flynn had long perfected their shopping technique: Wyatt followed Flynn around with the cart while Flynn made ninety percent of the shopping choices and Wyatt made the other ten percent by sneaking junk food into the cart when Flynn wasn’t looking.

“Any idea on the symbol?” Wyatt asked, using the question as a distraction to side some potato chips into the cart behind the bag of Brussel sprouts.

“No. I know I’ve seen it before, but I can’t think where.”

The symbol was two vertical Ws interlocking with an arrow on the upper end, the middle vertical line having a ring on the top. Wyatt had never seen anything like it before, although it reminded him vaguely of those old medical symbols from Ancient Greece.

“Did you run it through the database?”

“No, Wyatt,” Flynn said, “I just sat on my ass and went through my mind palace, complete with fancy sound effects from post-production.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes.

Flynn looked down at the cart and saw the Ho Hos that Wyatt had snuck in there the last aisle over. “Really? I’m trying to save you from an early death and you’re just undermining me at every turn.”

“Lucy likes Ho Hos.”

Flynn pointed a finger at him. “Low blow.”

“Do you think she’s… y’know… handling it well? The whole neighbor murder thing. That isn’t a murder.”

“She seems to believe it’s a murder.”

“Right, yeah, and I just—worry that we should’ve been there with her.”

They walked into another aisle. Wyatt watched as Flynn stared at the jars of peanut butter, obviously not seeing them. “Tessa reminded you of her, didn’t she? She reminded you of Lucy.”

Wyatt stared at him. Was he that obvious? “I… yeah. How’d you know that?”

“Because…” Flynn’s throat worked. “Because I thought the same thing. I walked into that room and I—for a second I thought it was Lucy.”

Wyatt nodded, looking over at the jars of peanut butter as if they were going to give them an answer to something. “There’s something fucked up about it,” he admitted. “The person was so… methodical about it, right? And vicious. Who strings someone up with barbed wire?”

Flynn grabbed a jar of peanut butter and put it into the cart. It wasn’t their usual brand, but Wyatt didn’t think this was the best time to point that out. “We’ll get them. Whoever they are, we’ll get them.”

Wyatt nodded. He believed in Flynn.

* * *

Jiya came over while Flynn and Wyatt were out. Unlike Flynn and Wyatt, Jiya was more than happy to spy on neighbors. She even made popcorn for them to eat while they did it.

“See! Look! He’s moving that rug again! Doesn’t it look like there’s something in it!?” Lucy passed the binoculars over to Jiya.

“Mm, sure looks like it could fit a body to me,” Jiya noted.

“See? See!? I’m not crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Jiya assured her. “He’s getting rid of the evidence.”

“Okay, but how do we get over there and stop him? We’re not the police.”

“You could ask Wyatt,” Jiya noted. “He’ll do whatever you say. I mean, so would Flynn, but Flynn’s more stubborn.”

Lucy ignored that comment. “They’re going to be annoyed when they get back and learn I was back to doing this, they kept telling me to lay off it.”

“I mean, there’s something weird going on here. And if the girl’s okay then why hasn’t she been back to pick up her stuff? I wouldn’t want to leave all my crap in the hands of my ex, who knows what he’d do with it. Especially if he caught me cheating, he could be destroying my stuff as revenge.”

Lucy frowned. “How do you know that she was caught cheating?” She’d just told Jiya about the murder, she hadn’t mentioned why the murder had taken place.

“Rufus told me,” Jiya replied. “And how do we know that the girl that Rufus spoke to on the phone is really the girlfriend? She could be anyone. He could’ve asked a friend to pretend to be her. Made up some excuse about why.”

Lucy nodded. “You get me. This is why you’re the best.”

The front door opened and Wyatt entered, hands full with groceries. “Oh, hey, Jiya. There’s still some bags downstairs, do you think you could go down to the parking garage and help Flynn?”

“No problem.” Jiya jumped up and left with a wave as Wyatt put the groceries down onto the kitchen counter.

Lucy picked up the binoculars again, staring at the guy through the windows. Hmmm.

Wyatt sighed from the kitchen. “Lucy, c’mon. Rufus didn’t find anything. Don’t you think if he did, he would’ve told you? Rufus cares about this kind of thing, he wouldn’t let it go if he really found something fishy.”

“Jiya thinks…”

“Jiya’s bored and likes to watch the _Real Housewives _with Jess, I’m not sure I’d trust her judgment.”

Lucy watched as the guy began to get out supplies for dinner, chopping up vegetables. He got a can of soda out from the cupboard and took a sip. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Look, I get it.” Wyatt walked over, bracing his hands on the back of her wheelchair. “You’re bored, it is a bit weird, your mind wants a problem to solve, so it found one. I’d probably do the same thing in your position. And… it’s your birthday today. Your sister’s out, Mason’s out, don’t you think maybe… maybe this is a way for you to try and get attention?” He turned her around in the wheelchair, and Lucy saw no pity in his eyes, just sympathy. “Because your mom made it feel like asking for attention was wrong, and you get tons of attention with your job, so… attention’s wrong and you feel bad for wanting it, but you do want it, and this is a way for you to get it that’s justified?”

Lucy looked down at the binoculars in her hands. “Maybe,” she admitted.

Wyatt looked terrified, for some reason, and then leaned forward and quickly kissed the top of her head, retreating like he thought she might punch him for it. “Flynn’ll be up in a moment. Wyatt crossed to the refrigerator. “Can I get you a drink from the fridge?”

Lucy froze. Her eyes went wide. “The fridge!” she whispered.

Wyatt froze. “Oh no.”

“Wyatt, Wyatt look!” Lucy waved the binoculars at him. “He took a soda out of the cupboard. Why would he take a soda out of the cupboard? Why not the fridge?”

“Lucy…”

“Where do you put a body, or body parts, if you want to preserve it until you can get rid of it?”

“Lucy!”

“You freeze it! You put it in the fridge! That’s why he had so much blood on his hands, that I _saw _him wash off, that’s why there was such a mess, that’s why Rufus didn’t find anything when he went in, because he only checked the bedroom!”

Wyatt, to Lucy’s surprise, looked irritated. “You know what, Lucy?” He slammed the fridge closed. “Flynn spent a lot of time at the store trying to pick out food for a really nice birthday dinner for you, and he made us breakfast this morning, and he’s really excited even though he’ll never admit it, and you’re fixated on this thing—” Wyatt shook his head. “Okay, you want answers? I’ll get you answers. I’m going over there, and I’m going to open that damn fridge and show you that there’s nothing there, and then we’re going to have a great, relaxing dinner that Flynn makes us and we’re not fixating on ridiculous hare-brained theories!”

Wyatt grabbed his badge, waving it in the air, and then stormed out of the apartment.

Lucy’s breath was coming in fast. What—where had that even come from!?

She grabbed the binoculars, practically gluing them to her face.

Wyatt walked up to the apartment door, knocking. The guy answered it, smiling jovially. Wyatt gave him a warm smile in return—Wyatt was good at doing the whole ‘bro’ white men bonding thing with possible male suspects.

He got himself into the apartment, and then made a movement to go to the fridge… and the man stopped him.

Lucy’s heart leapt into her throat.

Wyatt said something and moved toward the fridge again. The guy stopped him, looking angry. They tussled—oh, no, no they were tussling right by—the guy grabbed the knife he’d been using—

“Wyatt!” Lucy yelled instinctively, even if he couldn’t hear her.

The lights in the apartment went out.

Lucy screamed.

* * *

Flynn helped her on her crutches, getting her across to the apartment. “If he’s dead and it’s all my fault,” she said, holding back tears as they got into the elevator.

“He’s okay,” Flynn assured her, sounding certain. “I promise he’s fine.”

“You don’t know that!”

Flynn muttered something about _supposed_ and _upset_. “C’mon, this is our floor.”

They got off the elevator and Flynn walked up ahead of her, pulling out some lockpicks. “This’ll take a second.”

“What if he’s dying!?”

“Lucy, I promise you, Wyatt’s not dying.”

Flynn finished with the lockpicks and Lucy didn’t even give him a chance to stand back—she shoved the door open with one of her crutches and scrambled in as best and as fast as she could on her crutches, peering into the dark. “Wyatt? Wyatt!?”

The light flicked on from behind her, and out of all the people standing in front of her—Amy was not the person she expected.

“Surprise!” Amy said.

Next to her, whole and unharmed, stood a very sheepish looking Wyatt.

“Amy said you’d like it,” Flynn said, coming up behind her, hands in his back pockets. “A mystery for you to solve while we were busy.”

“So—wait, what!?” Lucy looked around.

Jess was standing a little behind them, holding a giant cake in the shape of a book that said _Happy Birthday Lucy _on it. Rufus and Jiya were there, holding back laughter. And behind them stood Mason, along with…

“You!” Lucy pointed accusingly at the three people standing with Mason. It was the boyfriend, the girlfriend, and the man she’d been cheating with.

“My acting students,” Mason said proudly.

“You have no idea how many times we had to work on the timing to get you to grab the binoculars at the right moments,” the girl said.

Lucy looked at Amy, who shrugged. “As if I’d really miss out on my sister’s birthday. You’re the only one I’ve got, after all.”

“Are you okay?” Wyatt asked, his voice small and his eyes big and puppyish. “Flynn and I got worried that you were too upset, that it was a bad idea.”

Lucy shook her head, a grin spreading over her face. “I did think it was weird that you just got angry with me.”

“I’m not trying to win an Oscar here!” Wyatt protested.

“I love it,” she said, looking at Amy. “You made up a mystery for me.”

“You always loved _Rear Window_.” Amy walked over and hugged her tightly, letting Lucy lean into her instead of on the crutches.

“That reminds me, I asked Denise and Michelle to grab your wheelchair on their way over, since they’ll be late,” Flynn said. “For when you get tired of the crutches.

Lucy turned around as best she could, swaying a little, and Flynn had to catch her so she wouldn’t fall. “Thank you.” She hugged him, a bit awkwardly with the crutches, but they managed.

Flynn went stiff in surprise for a moment, then hugged her back, one arm around her. “Of course.”

“We bought so much food,” Wyatt groaned. “Please come and eat it all.”

Lucy laughed and let Flynn and Amy help escort her to her cake, so they could light the candles. She poked at them. “If you ever pull something like that on me again—I thought I was going crazy.”

“You’re already crazy,” Amy said.

Everyone gathered around. Lucy couldn’t help but remember last year’s birthday. It had been right before Mom had passed. Lucy hadn’t wanted to do a big party like all the other years, which had been a veritable list of who’s who. Mom had always liked that. It wasn’t really Lucy’s thing. So she and Amy had just had an Agatha Christie marathon, watching _Death on the Nile _and _Murder on the Orient Express_ and the 2015 _And Then There Were None _miniseries. Despite Mason’s best attempts, the mood had still been somber.

This was so much better—better than last year, and better than the crazy, glitzy parties of the years before. This was her family, her sister who’d made a mystery for her and her friends who’d all played along.

When Amy told her to blow out the candles, Lucy didn’t even have anything to wish for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter featured plots from the episodes The Lives of Others (5x19) and Probable Cause (5x15).


	6. Chapter 6

Rufus still didn’t feel one hundred percent comfortable in the Preston loft. It was just so beyond any other place he’d spent a lot of time, and he was well aware that he couldn’t even afford to breathe in a building like this, never mind hope to live there.

But he felt more comfortable every time, and honestly, Mason helped a lot with that.

They’d started having these weekly… coffee sessions, where Mason would invite him over just to chat about all their various ideas. He was waking up parts of Rufus’s brain that Rufus had sort of ignored for years, consumed by the twin ideas of supporting his brother and crusading to help change the police system.

But with Mason, he could think about inventions, about physics, about all the science he’d so loved that he’d let himself forget about. Mason was considered an innovator on Broadway, and had helped to produce some of the most daring shows out there, but sometimes he pushed himself too far and went for an idea that was too insane to work.

“You talk like I’m a mad scientist,” Mason said, wagging a finger as he poured coffee for them.

“You funded _Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark_, that’s all I’m going to say.”

Mason clasped at his heart. “You wound me! I’ll have you know—”

“I rest my case.”

Mason brought the coffee over as Rufus relaxed against the couch. “Rufus, you have to admit, the idea of the stunts…”

“I was thinking more about the plot, but sure, let’s bring up the _spinal injury_…”

Mason laughed. “I wish you’d been around a few years ago. I was making such awful choices, I hit a real slump.”

“What did you do instead?”

Mason shrugged. “Leaned on Carol. She had money and connections thanks to Lucy and she had no problem using them. Lucy might seem… flighty at times but it was all a defense, I think. Carol could be so ruthless, it was sort of… going in the opposite direction. And then. Well. Now I’m here.”

“Now you’re here.” Rufus looked around pointedly. “Yeah, these are such awful digs.”

Mason tapped his finger against his coffee mug. “You know what I mean. Haven’t you ever felt like you were trying to do something good, and in the process you made a deal with the Devil without realizing it? And I don’t mean in a melodramatic sort of way, just in a very… quiet way. The road to Hell, I don’t think, is so much a steep drop as it is a way of vaguely sauntering downward.”

“As you say, Pratchett. And as long as we’re quoting, you know what a lot of people claim that road’s paved with.”

“Exactly my point. Don’t tell me you haven’t ever done something wrong with the best of intentions. And it’s not that I am unhappy now, or that I ever was, joining up with Carol, but I… I could have been _happier_. I could have been—more, better, than I was, than I am. I’ve stalled in who I am as a—as a person, as a version of myself. I want to be that better version of myself again.”

Rufus tried not to squirm, feeling with an uncomfortable itch that he knew exactly how Mason felt.

“What do you plan to, uh, do to fix that?” Rufus asked.

“You know what? I don’t yet know,” Mason said, with a great deal of lightheartedness that Rufus himself didn’t feel.

There was the sound of clattering footsteps and yelling, and Mason sighed.

“Do they have any idea how loud they are?” Rufus asked, and he didn’t mean strictly in volume.

The front door burst open and Lucy, Wyatt, and Flynn tumbled in, bickering about something.

“It’s not really about the mystery,” Flynn was saying, “it’s about the characters—”

“I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy her work, I’m only saying that insofar as constructing a _puzzle_—” Lucy interjected, speaking over him.

“Look can we just agree that Nero Wolfe was an icon for a _reason_?” Wyatt asked.

“No!” Lucy and Flynn yelled at the same moment before turning back to resume yelling at each other about… Rufus actually couldn’t even tell which authors they were debating. Something about a mystery involving a body on a beach, and timing, and then something about another body on another beach in another book altogether. Oh, and the 1920s.

Wyatt threw his hands into the air, then spied Rufus and Mason. “Oh, hey, guys. Enjoying your weekly hangout?”

“We were just commenting on how peaceful it was around here,” Mason said dryly as Flynn said that if he was going to go to detective novel prison for valuing a genuine slow burn romance over a neatly executed murder plot then by God put him in handcuffs that instant.

“I love how Flynn says I’m the dramatic one,” Wyatt muttered.

Rufus really didn’t even know what to say to that and let out a breath of relief when two phones went off.

“Flynn,” Flynn said tersely as he yanked his phone out of his pocket. He nodded. “All right, yes, text the address, we’ll be there.”

Wyatt, meanwhile, answered his phone. “Logan. Uh, yeah, I can be at the precinct. No problem. Okay. Bye.”

“We’ve got a crime scene,” Flynn said.

“Jess wants me down at the precinct,” Wyatt replied.

“I’ll go with Flynn,” Lucy said. “You can just meet up with us later. I’m sure it’s important.” She looked over at Rufus.

“Hey, did you see my phone go off?” Rufus replied. “I’m going back to my coffee and my civilized conversation.”

Flynn, Lucy, and Wyatt all gave eerily similar eyerolls. Oh God. They weren’t even dating and they were picking up on each other’s habits. This was possibly his worst nightmare.

“Right, we’ll see you later then,” Flynn said, and the three of them exited in just as much of a whirlwind as they’d arrived.

“You know,” Mason said into the ensuing quiet, “sometimes I wonder if we ought to trap them all into a room together, but then times like these I wonder if that might not just end up in a triple homicide.”

Rufus couldn’t help but agree.

* * *

Wyatt walked into the precinct with a grin on his face. Okay, so Lucy and Flynn’s dismissal of the work of Rex Stout stung a bit, but hey, noir wasn’t for everyone. Sam Spade was more Wyatt’s style, while Flynn preferred Dalgliesh. It was still damn entertaining to watch Lucy and Flynn go at it with hammer and tongs over their murder mystery preferences.

Jess was waiting for him at her desk, arms folded. “Jess, light of my life.”

“That’s not what the divorce papers said,” Jess replied.

It had taken a while for the divorce, for their relationship in general, to become something they could discuss with any kind of civility. They managed well enough but the moment the subject was properly brought up instead of danced around, it was like they were right back in the harrowing few months after Lorena and Iris’s deaths, screaming at each other and hurling hateful words they didn’t really mean.

Now, though, they could joke about it, and ironically enough that warmed Wyatt’s heart.

“What’s all this about?” he asked, following Jess into one of the side rooms that they used to examine evidence. “We just got a new case, Flynn and Lucy are already on the scene.”

Jess closed the door behind him. “You know the Tessa Horton case?”

“It’s not exactly an easy case to forget.” The killer had eluded them so far, and Wyatt knew Flynn was getting increasingly frustrated. Hell, Wyatt himself was increasingly frustrated. Tessa’s murder wasn’t just violent. It was methodical, done by someone who wanted to make a show of it, who had used her like some kind of ritual sacrifice. It was horribly, sickeningly wrong. Like something out of one of Lucy’s books, almost.

Tessa’s similarities to Lucy sure didn’t help, either.

“Well, CSU just contacted me. They found a pair of prints on the scene—on the door frame of the apartment.”

“That’s great, that’s great news.” Wyatt reached for the papers that Jess had on the table, but Jess gently pushed them away from him. “Are they a match for anyone?”

“Yes, actually.” Jess’s voice was soft in a way that it only got when she was about to tell Wyatt very, very bad news. It was the way it had gotten when she’d told Wyatt she wanted a divorce for the second time, after Wyatt had begged her that they were family. It was the way she’d gotten when she’d told Wyatt about his father. About what she’d done.

“Jess?” he asked, and he hated that his voice sounded soft and small.

Jess slid the papers towards him. Her eyes were dark. “Wyatt, the fingerprints match Flynn’s.”

Wyatt picked up the papers, saw the stark black and white type, and nearly ripped them in half. “Flynn—he must’ve touched the door by accident as we got to the crime scene.”

“Since when is Flynn ignorant of proper crime scene procedure? He always puts on gloves first thing.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Wyatt.” Jess’s voice was still so soft, and he hated it. He wanted her to scream at him, to shout, to get that sharp, hard edge in her tone. When Jess was angry and spitting like a cat, it was okay. It was when she got like this, calm and gentle, that things were bad. “CSU collected these prints before either of you arrived.”

“No.” Wyatt threw the papers onto the table. “CSU is mistaken.”

She shook her head. “Wyatt…”

“They’re mistaken.” He knew he was speaking far too sharply with her, that it wasn’t Jess’s fault, that he shouldn’t shoot the messenger, but— “Flynn would never murder anyone. He’d never hurt anyone, especially not—not like that, okay? So just—whatever this is? It’s a mistake. There’s an explanation for it. What, a week and those prints are all we’ve got?”

Jess looked like she was holding in a sigh. “There is something else.”

“Finally. Something fucking useful. Show it to me.”

The sad look on Jess’s face as she gathered the papers—that hurt worse than any argument they’d ever had.

* * *

Lucy followed Flynn around the crime scene—a murdered priest in an abandoned building in a bad part of town. Huh. Not where she would’ve expected a man of the cloth to be, especially not one who apparently, according to his ID, lived and worked in a parish in a different borough altogether.

“What do you think of Rufus and Mason?” she asked as Flynn bent down over the body. Flynn looked unusually upset, and she wondered about his background. Was he Catholic? Most Croatians were Catholic, right? But wouldn’t that be stereotyping to assume?

Flynn shrugged. “Seems like a recipe for disaster.”

That brought Lucy up short. “What do you mean?”

Flynn stood up. “Oh, come on, we both know how Mason can be. Rufus is a good guy, he’s got a steady head on his shoulders, but…”

“But what, Mason’s going to lead him astray? To a dance down at the Arm’ry with libertine men and scarlet women and…” Lucy faked a gasp. “_Ragtime_?”

Flynn gave her a deliberately blank look. “Very funny.”

“Mason’s a good person. I know that he can be eccentric but he was there for Amy and me when we needed it. I’m glad he and Rufus are becoming friends.”

“And you don’t think—”

“I think you’re being harsh and judging him unfairly,” Lucy snapped, with more vitriol than she intended.

Flynn looked annoyed, and that was when Jiya awkwardly cleared her throat. “So, if we’re finished discussing my boyfriend’s life choices, would either of you mind if I can discuss the dead body we’re standing over?”

Lucy felt herself flushing. Flynn was so—so—_Flynn_. He made her forget where she was and what else was going on as she bickered with him. Could he see it? Could everyone see it? She felt like she was making a fool of herself.

“Go on,” Flynn said, sweeping his hand to Jiya.

Jiya pointed at the dead priest’s chest. “All right, you see these bullet wounds here? Notice anything about them?”

“They’re all in one close group,” Lucy noted.

“The killer was a good marksman.”

Jiya nodded. “The killer picked up all the shell casings from the bullets, too. CSU can’t find any. Whoever this was, they knew what they were doing.”

Flynn looked grim. “Looks like we’re not just dealing with a murder, then. We’re dealing with an assassination.”

* * *

Jess handed Wyatt the piece of jewelry, still in the plastic bag from CSU. Wyatt put his gloves on and pulled it out—a necklace, a ruby one, and an expensive one at that. “Tessa’s roommate did say this guy was rich.”

“Or she assumed he was, from the theatre tickets and all that,” Jess replied.

Wyatt examined the necklace. _Burgundy is Flynn’s favorite color_. The thought rose, unbidden, in his mind. _He once said rubies were his favorite gemstone._

Wyatt shoved that thought to the back of his head. “Do we know where this came from?” He flipped the necklace over, examining the back. “Good craftsmanship.”

“As if you’d know. Need I remind you how picking out my engagement ring went?”

“Lucy’s been teaching me stuff,” Wyatt said, feeling defensive. Lucy had a rather nice jewelry collection and so what if she’d been talking with Wyatt about it one afternoon? Men could be interested in shit like that. Right?

On the clasp of the necklace was a small set of initials, the mark of the jeweler. “Did you contact the person who made this?”

Jess nodded. “It was a custom ordered piece.”

“Well, great, we can—”

“It was paid for by cashier’s check.”

Wyatt stared at her, lowering the necklace. “Do people even use those anymore?”

“This guy did. I have the CCTV footage though.” Jess shifted her weight, looking uncomfortable for the first time. “I figured we could go over it together.”

“Sure.” Wyatt put the necklace back into the back, sealed it, then stripped off his gloves. “Hand me the remote.”

The thing about CCTV footage was that it was, by and large, crappy. It was black and white, it was grainy, and it couldn’t be enhanced in all those fancy ways they showed on television. Wyatt didn’t have a lot of hope in finding out who this person was, especially since the camera was unfortunately at such an angle that the face of the customer couldn’t be properly seen, more like just the side of their head. But he’d take it. He’d take whatever he could to disprove whatever insane theory Flynn’s fingerprints at the crime scene might have cooked up in the heads of the precinct and CSU.

They didn’t know Flynn, not like Wyatt did. Flynn would never hurt anyone like that. Especially not someone who looked so much like—

A tall, dark-haired man walked into the view of the CCTV screen. His shoulders were a bit stooped, from the habit of being the tallest person in the room and subsequently trying to get down to everyone else’s level. His gait was long, but oddly elegant, not gangly at all.

Wyatt’s heart stopped, and then sank.

“You can’t see his face,” he said, even as the man on screen paid for and picked up the very necklace Wyatt had just held in his hands, the necklace CSU had found between the couch cushions in Tessa’s apartment.

Jess hit pause. “You can’t see his face,” Wyatt repeated.

“Honey,” she said. Wyatt shook his head frantically. If she said it, that made it true. “Wyatt, honey. That looks like Flynn.”

* * *

When it came to finding out who had wanted the priest dead, there were a lot of ways to go about that. Looking into his financials, talking to his friends and family, his parish. But when it came to trying to find the actual person who'd done the deed, the hitman—that would be a bit harder.

Flynn opted for the tried and true method of asking around.

"This bar was right across the street from the murder scene," he pointed out, holding the door open for Lucy. "Maybe someone saw something."

"Sounds kind of like an assumption to me," Lucy said. "Rather like the assumptions you're making about Mason."

"You can't deny that Mason has his faults. I'm not going to apologize for worrying that he'll convince Rufus to drop everything on some flight of fancy—hi," Flynn said, interrupting himself as they approached the bartender. He flashed his badge. "We've got a few questions for you."

* * *

Jess waited at her desk while Wyatt went to the bathroom ‘for a fucking piss, Jess, stop looking at me like that’.

She’d known that Wyatt would be upset about the fingerprints. And seeing someone who looked like Flynn on the CCTV was a shock. But despite all the evidence, Jess couldn’t quite understand. There was following the evidence, but there was also following logic, and that was the part that didn’t add up. What was Flynn doing wooing this girl? And hurting her? What possible motive—

Her phone rang.

“Jessica Logan,” she said, answering automatically without looking at the name. It had been too much of a hassle to change her name back after the divorce, and besides, if anyone from their hometown finally put two and two together and started looking for her, they’d probably be using her maiden name. Better to be safe than sorry.

“Hey, Jess, it’s me.” Rufus sounded a little wary. “Uh, I was hoping to talk to you about an email I got—”

“From CSU about the report, yeah, I saw it too.” Jess rubbed at her temples. “They also found a necklace buried in Tessa’s couch cushions. Wyatt and I traced it to the jewelry store that made it, custom, and we watched the CCTV footage. The person who buys it—he looks a lot like Flynn.”

“Shit.” Rufus sounded like he was pacing. “I don’t like this, Jess. I don’t like it. I—fuck. I shouldn’t have done it, but—I got the email and I remembered how Tessa’s roommate said that the boyfriend would take her out to fancy places. So I—I asked for Mason’s help and I looked into Flynn’s financials.”

“You _what_?” Jess hissed, standing up quickly to check that Wyatt wasn’t about to come down the hallway. “Rufus! Without a warrant?”

“I know, I know! I—I found some strange financial activity on there. What looked like wire transfers.”

“That—that could be anything.”

“Yeah, but…” Rufus blew out a breath, filling the phone with static. “We gotta tell Denise.”

“And do what, let her clap Flynn in irons? Wyatt would never accept it.”

“We all know how Wyatt feels about Flynn,” Rufus replied. “But it’s not his decision, is it?”

“It’s his case.”

“Denise will take him off it once she knows Flynn might be involved. They’re roommates, it’s too personal.”

Jess sat back down heavily. Shit. This wasn’t looking good. “Why would Flynn do that to someone, Rufus? Hurt someone like that, in that way? It doesn’t—it doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. But we can’t argue with facts. We have to follow where they take us.” Rufus’s voice sounded dull as he said it, like he didn’t actually believe what he was saying.

Jess stood up again. “We have to arrest Flynn. Tell Denise. She’ll arrange it.”

“Okay,” Rufus said slowly, sounding disbelieving. “You sure about this? Jess, once we do this, there’s no going back.”

“I know.” She knew better than anyone that actions had consequences. That something once done could not be undone. “It’ll be all right.”

She hung up the phone. Flynn needed to be arrested—for his own protection.

None of this made sense, and until it did, Flynn had to be looked after for his own safety. Jess grabbed her jacket.

It had been a few years since she’d broken the law, but hey, they said it was just like riding a bike. And when it came to that kind of thing, she’d biked the fucking Tour de France.

* * *

Turned out there was a witness, a guy by the name of Leo who was a semi-regular at the bar. He'd said something to the bartender about seeing two suspicious-looking guys lurking around the place. If the bartender had to guess, he'd say mafia type.

"The Irish mafia control this area," Rufus told them when they called him for some background information. "And get this, I was talking to the nun who works with Father O'Malley. His childhood best friend? None other than Mickey Dolan."

"Am I supposed to know that name?" Flynn asked.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I know that name, he's a big enforcer for an Irish crime family, the Hannigans."

"And you know that how?" Flynn replied.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Actually, as a police detective, yes, I would."

"I'm still here," Rufus noted. "Anyway so I heard from the nun that Mickey and Father O'Malley had started meeting up again. My guess is O'Malley knew too much and Mickey had him offed."

"We have a potential witness," Flynn said. "We'll see what more light he can shed on this. Thanks, Rufus."

"Be careful out there, you're in a bad neighborhood. Your car could get stolen."

"My car is not going to get stolen," Lucy retorted, parking.

"I just—" Flynn said as they got out of the car, hanging up with Rufus, "—it's not that I don't think—Mason is well-intended. But I know Rufus has been doubting himself lately, doubting his… his purpose, if you will, and Mason will give him all these ideas, and it's different for Mason, and for you, you have money, but Rufus has nothing to fall back on…"

Lucy felt an unexpected flare of shame and anger as they mounted the steps to the apartment. "Hold on, are you saying that Mason—or me for that matter, thanks—would fail to consider something like Rufus's financial situation when giving him career advice?"

"Come on, Lucy, when was the last time you honestly thought about how to pay your bills? Even when you weren't writing, you never had to worry about finances, did you? You only had to worry about your own sense of purpose. But your loft is paid for, your car is paid for—"

Flynn did have a point, and the churning in her gut got worse. "That doesn't mean that I wouldn't consider it for Rufus, I know he has a different situation."

"But would Mason?"

"Hang on, no, let's focus on me for a second here, and yes I know how that sounds." They got in the elevator for the third floor. "You mentioned me in that mix. Do you think—"

The elevator doors dinged open. Flynn got out his badge. "I think that you were raised by an upperclass Aryan family, Lucy. Rufus wasn't. He's lower class. He's Black. I mean, look at the two of us. I'm Eastern European. My country didn't even exist until the 1990s. People hear my accent and look at me like I'm about to kidnap Liam Neeson's daughter. And I certainly didn't grow up in a ranch style house a half an hour from San Francisco."

"Wow, okay, tell me how you really feel."

Flynn seemed to realize, at last, that he might have overstepped a bit in making his point. "I'm not saying you don't make an effort. I know you do." He knocked on the door of the guy, Leo, whom the bartender had mentioned. "But I am saying that you, and Mason, both have privilege when it comes to being able to pick any lifestyle or career that you want. Rufus doesn't."

"You have a point, but that doesn't mean you get to decide from whom Rufus can take advice—"

Lucy and Flynn's phones both went off with texts. Lucy pulled hers out, as did Flynn. Huh, why was Wyatt saying _CALL ME!!!_ in all caps, was something wrong?

"Did he break the espresso machine again," Flynn muttered, staring at his phone.

Fuck, she'd dropped her wallet in yanking her phone out of her pocket. Lucy bent down to pick it up—

The door to Leo's apartment opened—

And two men emerged from the stairs at the far end of the hallway.

"Hello?" A timid looking man with curly hair asked, opening the door further.

"Lucy, get in!" Flynn yelled, dropping his phone and badge—which was on his wallet—to grab his gun as the two men grabbed theirs.

Gunshots rang out and Lucy squeaked in surprise and fear as Flynn shoved her inside the apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.

"Excuse me!?" Leo demanded. "Who are you!? What is happening!?"

"I'm Lucy Preston, I'm a consultant with the NYPD," Lucy explained. "That is Garcia Flynn, he's a homicide detective. We're here about the murder you might have—actually, probably, if these guys are here—witnessed last night?"

"They're gonna get in," Flynn noted through clenched teeth as pounding began on the other side of the door.

"Mickey Dolan just wants to talk!" one of the men said.

"Why do I not trust that?" Flynn muttered.

"Is there another way out of here?" Lucy whispered.

"Um…" Poor Leo looked terrified. "The fire escape?"

"Great. Yeah. That'll work."

Flynn shoved the coffee table against the door and then the three of them bolted for the fire escape.

"Our wallets and phones are back there!" Lucy realized halfway down.

"Oh, shit, I left my stuff in the apartment," Leo added.

"Too late, we'll just run for your car," Flynn said.

"What car?" Leo asked as they reached the ground.

The spot where Lucy's (very nice, thank you) car had been was now… empty.

"Rufus is going to laugh his ass off," Flynn grumbled.

“You parked here?" Leo asked. "Are you kidding me? Don’t you see this neighborhood?”

Flynn looked at Lucy, who pointed at him. “Not another word.”

Flynn held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"What, no quips about how I can just buy a new car?" Lucy snapped.

Okay, so maybe Flynn's comments about her wealthy background, justified as they were, stung more than she'd realized.

The men poked their heads out of Leo's apartment, yelling for them.

"Run now, talk later!" Flynn said, grabbing the both of them. "Let's go!"

They ran through the streets, trying to find a place that was open—but it was late and everything was closing down. And there wasn't a cab in sight, what the hell, was this _The Twilight Zone_ or something? You could always get a cab in NYC.

"Is there not even a 24 hour Chinese place!?" she hissed. "Did we step into an alternate dimension!?"

"We just need to find a place to hole up, and no, there isn't going—why do you even like Chinese food so much anyway?"

"Oh, so it's just pick on Lucy night!? Is that what I'm understanding? Why are you such an impossible grouch—"

“Y’know I’m sensing a lot of tension here and I’m thinking that has less to do with our situation and more to do with um… something between the two of you?” Leo suggested.

"No!" Flynn and Lucy both yelled at the same time.

* * *

Denise didn't like what she was hearing about Flynn, but she had learned quickly in this job that what she did and didn't like didn't change a damn thing about the situation at hand, whatever that situation might be. She had gotten into this job to be for someone else what the cop at her father's death had been for her. She wanted to show the world that there were still those who believed in justice, in honor, in the idea of actually serving and protecting.

And that meant she had to pursue the facts. No matter how much she hated them.

"Thank you for telling me this, Rufus," Denise said. "Any reason Jess and Wyatt are having you be the messenger instead of reporting their findings to me themselves?"

"I suspect that Jess is trying to talk Wyatt out of flinging himself off a cliff," Rufus replied. Denise wasn't sure how much he was joking. "C'mon, captain, can you really blame them? They know Flynn better than anyone."

"You and I have known Flynn longer than they have," Denise said, feeling oddly protective of her relationship with Flynn in a way that she rarely did. "Do not mistake composure for ease, Rufus. I don't like this any more than they have. I was there when Lorena and Iris died, too."

"What do you want us to do?"

Denise wasn't sure what the answer to that was. What she _wanted _was an answer to this murder that wasn't 'one of the men I've known and trusted the longest is a killer' but she had to follow procedure. If she didn't go by the book on this, if she broke the rules on this, then what was next? Hollywood and the media loved to spoon feed the masses stories about corrupt cops, cops who broke rules with impunity and operated outside the law. Dirty Harry and his ilk convinced people that it was okay for authority to ignore the rules that supposedly helped keep their power in check. As if the very idea of cops wasn't holding enough power already. She couldn't go against the rules for Flynn. She couldn't let herself start down that path. If she compromised on this, she could compromise on other, much more powerful things later.

Before she could answer, someone started pounding on her office door. She turned.

It was Amy Preston, and right behind her was Connor Mason.

* * *

"Lucy hasn't answered any of my calls," Amy said, striving to keep the panic out of her voice as she waved her phone at Captain Christopher. "She always picks up when I call, always, ever since her accident in college."

"Her accident?" Rufus asked.

"Lucy was in a car accident," Amy said, feeling exasperated. "Her car went into the water, it's why she's so claustrophobic. Ever since then she's been paranoid, paranoid, captain, about answering calls and texts. If she's not answering me, then something's wrong!"

"I admit, I'm the sort of serial texter that will make people put their phones on do not disturb," Mason added dryly.

It was true. He was. The last time he'd blown up Amy's phone it had been because he was waxing poetic about Robert Johnson, some important blues musician. He helped invent rock n' roll? Or something? Amy hadn't really paid attention, she'd just given up and scrolled through all the texts to the bottom.

"But Lucy always reads my texts," Mason went on. "She checks this kind of thing. She doesn't want anyone to not realize that she's in danger because she failed to respond to texts or calls. And she wants to know immediately if something happened to us."

Denise picked up her phone and dialed a number, listening. Amy could hear it ringing, and ringing, and ringing.

"Flynn's not answering," she said, hanging the phone up and looking at Rufus. "When was the last time he checked in?"

"If they've run into another tiger…" Rufus muttered, checking his phone. Lucy and Jess had both mentioned something, Amy recalled, about Denise enforcing strict team check-ins after Lucy and Wyatt had been trapped and nearly eaten by a tiger after they'd failed to report their trip to a location in a case.

"He last checked in two hours ago," Rufus announced. "Says that he and Lucy found the witness to the murder and he provides a name and address. Nothing about having the witness in custody."

"Head out," Denise said. "And see if you can get tech to track their phones. I want my people found, and I want them found now."

Amy felt sick to her stomach. "What can we do?"

"Stay here," Denise counseled, her voice gentling. "If Lucy calls, we want to know, and when we find them, we'll bring them here first."

Amy noted the use of 'when' instead of 'if' and wished she had that kind of conviction. She could so easily recall not hearing from Lucy for hours, and hours, and finally getting a call from Dad, _we're at the hospital, it's your sister, she was in an accident_. Rushing over and finding her vibrant, passionate sister all cold and pale in a hospital bed, getting treated for pneumonia from the cold water, as Mom snapped at doctors and Dad held Lucy's hand.

"It'll be best if you wait in the break room," Denise added, not unkindly.

Rufus escorted them out. "I'll get you guys some coffee. And, uh." He handed his phone over. "I hope this isn't overstepping but. My mom's had to deal with her son as a cop, a black cop, for years. If you want you can… you can call her. She might have some good things to say."

Mason took the phone. Amy couldn't. Her hands were shaking too much. "Connor…"

"I know," Mason replied. He turned the phone over in his hand as Rufus went out to rally the troops.

“I don’t know how you do this,” Mason admitted. “I thought I would get used to it. Lucy putting her life on the line. But I… how do you ever grow used to the idea of—of someone you love being out there…”

"You know how to do everything," Amy replied.

"Honestly, Amy, when I say that most of the time I wing it, I really do mean that." Mason unlocked Rufus's phone (Amy supposed she'd wait until later to ask how he knew the pass code) and clicked on 'contacts' then 'Mom'. "Let's see what Rufus's mum has to say about it all, shall we? She if she can dispense some wisdom?"

It was better than sitting around doing nothing but worrying and drinking coffee until she had to pee every five minutes. "…sure."

Mason lightly bumped her shoulder with his. "There's a good girl." He hit the call button.

* * *

They found a place to hole up, finally.

Lucy watched Flynn pace as he tried to figure out what to do next. Her various ideas had all been shot down as too fanciful to work (including fixing up the ham radio she found on one of the shelves in this… well she wasn't sure exactly what it was other than a poorly-locked basement of some kind) by Flynn, and she wasn't about to let him use his idea of rushing off alone into the night in the hopes of actually outrunning the damn Irish mafia to get to the nearest police station. How the man's hero complex hadn't ended up with him dead decades before, she didn't know.

Leo sat down next to her. He'd sprained his ankle as they'd run, which was why they'd holed up here, but it was only a matter of time until Mickey's men found them. Lucy wasn't looking forward to that.

And Wyatt's text was still nagging at the back of her mind. Was everything all right?

"So how long have you two been together?" Leo asked quietly.

Lucy startled, nearly falling off the empty apple crate she was using as a makeshift chair. "We're—we're not together."

"Oh, sorry, ah, I hope the break up—"

"We were never together, ever. We're just partners. Work partners." Lucy hated herself for blushing as they said it.

Leo looked at her like he was a bird and she was a curious new animal he hadn't seen before. "I couldn't help but overhear your argument while you were knocking on my front door. You two can get pretty loud when you argue."

"Flynn was right, I know what you're going to say. I do come from—from money, I've had money my whole life. My family's money was how I could pursue a writing career, devote myself to it full time, get connections in the publishing world—my mom was a history professor and she'd written some nonfiction books, so she knew people in the publishing industry. I come from a world of privilege for so many reasons—"

"And he doesn't," Leo cut in, and somehow she knew he wasn't talking about Rufus. “You’re from two different worlds, and you’re worried that might mean that you’re not compatible in the long run. That whatever you’re feeling right now might not last. That you could never actually make it work.”

Lucy stared at him. "How—how did you—"

"Oh, please, it's written all over your face how you feel about him." Leo smiled, not unkindly. "And I took a lot of therapy. You actually do learn stuff there, y'know. It can be really helpful."

Voices came from outside. Flynn went stiff and Lucy stood up. Leo also tried to stand, but winced from his ankle.

The voices faded.

Flynn beckoned them over. "They'll be back. Come on, we have to go."

They emerged out of the basement, looking around. From the other end of the alley came shouts. "Shit!" Lucy said, shoving Leo. "Go for it!"

All three of them started running and she was sort of scared for her life, so it took her a second to notice—but then she stuttered to a halt. "Flynn!"

Up ahead, leading them, Flynn stopped.

Lucy looked at Leo. "I thought your ankle was twisted?"

Behind them, she could hear two more sets of feet come to a halt.

"Fuck's sake," said one of the men, with a very slight accent. "We said, we just want to talk, all right? Jesus. Mickey just wants to know who killed his friend."

Everything spun around and Lucy saw the facts in a whole new light, lying them out in her head like chess pieces…

Leo pulled out his gun.

The two hitmen pulled out theirs, and Flynn, weaponless, jumped in front of Lucy. "Flynn what the hell are—"

Gunfire exploded, and Lucy screamed as she was shoved to the ground, Flynn's entire weight on top of her.

"You're crushing me," she managed to wheeze.

Flynn staggered to his feet. "Shit." He stared at the bodies. "The paperwork on this is going to be fucking insane."

"Father O'Malley was a priest," Lucy noted. "We thought he was going to sell Mickey out to someone, maybe the authorities. But that's not how priests work, is it? You don't share what someone told you in confession. Maybe—I don't know but maybe O'Malley was helping Mickey to redeem himself. Maybe Mickey didn't go to silence his friend, maybe the Irish mafia wanted to stop O'Malley from causing Mickey to—defect or something."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Flynn asked, helping her to her feet. "There's a literary turn to that."

"Doesn't mean it isn't true."

"I know." Flynn sighed. "I just—I'm not good with priests, that's all. Sorry."

"So you are Catholic." Another way in which they were from fundamentally different places.

"I was raised Catholic. I'm not sure what I am now. I was never much of a believer—I struggle with the idea of faith, at least in God. I'm much better at arguing with Him. Then after Lorena and Iris…"

"You didn't have to cover me."

"Of course I did." Flynn looked surprised, bending down to pick up the phone of one of the hitmen and dialing 9-1-1. "You're my partner."

"I… didn't feel much like you wanted me to be your partner tonight."

Flynn stared at her, then seemed to realize the dispatcher was asking what his emergency was. He rattled off the information, still staring at Lucy, and then hung up. "Lucy. Lucy, look at me."

She looked him in the eyes.

"I know we—we're opinionated people. And we come from different places. But you and I? We're a great team. You're one of the smartest women I know. One of the most creative. And one of the most compassionate. If anything you give a little too much." Flynn offered her a small smile. "I'm glad you're on our team."

"Do you think I should go to therapy?" Lucy blurted out.

Flynn blinked a few times. "Maybe. I know I should. I know that it might help with your issues with your mother. But I can't make that call for you, Lucy. Nobody but you can."

Lucy nodded and silence fell for a moment. "For the record?" she added. "I think we make a great team, too. I—I'm really lucky. To have you. As a partner."

"Well, good," Flynn said as Lucy picked up on sirens headed their way, "because you're stuck with me now, Lucy Preston."

* * *

Wyatt didn't want to do this. In fact he was pretty damn sure that he had never wanted to do anything less in his entire life.

"Denise, come on, there has to be another way," he protested, even as the team began to suit up. Why there was an entire fucking SWAT team to arrest Flynn, Wyatt couldn't say. Flynn wasn't fucking dangerous, he was one of their own, there was no need to treat him like an angered grizzly bear.

"If you've got another solution as to why Flynn's fingerprints are at the crime scene and why he's on the CCTV footage buying the necklace found at the victim's apartment, Wyatt," Denise said, suiting up herself, "then I would genuinely love to hear it."

Lucy and Flynn were finishing dealing with the hitman known as Leo, and Wyatt did not want Lucy to be there when this happened. "At least let me get Lucy out of here, okay? Mason and Amy, everyone's here, Denise, please."

Denise sighed. "I can't treat him any differently than I would another suspect, Wyatt. I can't let even a whiff of favoritism get out about this. I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Wyatt spat, using venom he knew that Denise didn't really deserve, "for some reason I don't fucking believe you."

Flynn was explaining some paperwork to Lucy when they got up to the desk area. His eyebrows shot up as he took in the bulletproof vests Wyatt and Denise were wearing, and the four man SWAT team behind them. "I don't think Leo's getting out of his cell," Flynn said, "but I do admire the dedication."

Wyatt swallowed. He had hated himself quite a few times in his life, but he wasn't sure that he had ever hated himself as viciously as he did right this moment. Getting dressed down and psychoanalyzed by Keynes sure hadn't been fun but he might actually take that over this right here, right now. "Garcia Flynn…" He swallowed. Fuck. "Garcia Flynn, I'm placing you under arrest for the murder of Tessa Horton."

Flynn stared at him. "Is this some kind of a joke?"

Lucy looked from Wyatt, to Flynn, to Denise, to Wyatt again. "Wyatt?"

"We… we found evidence that suggests that Flynn was in Tessa's apartment," Wyatt said. "And that he knew her, that he… that he was the boyfriend her roommate mentioned."

"No." Lucy sounded like someone had just tried to tell her that gravity had reversed.

"You don't seriously think that I would…" Flynn started, but Denise interrupted.

"We have to follow where the evidence goes," she said. She nodded at Wyatt. "Logan?"

His last name, fuck, okay, she meant business. Wyatt thought he might throw up. "Flynn…"

Flynn, the bastard, took pity on him and just held out his hands. Wyatt wanted him to rant, to rave, to snap and say something sardonic, but instead Flynn was just… silent.

Wyatt began to read him his rights, glad he had it all memorized because he honestly couldn't remember a fucking word, unaware of what was actually coming out of his mouth as he snapped the cuffs around Flynn's wrists.

Lucy was getting progressively louder. "No. No, Wyatt, stop it, stop it, Denise, _stop it!_"

Rufus, who had apparently been dispatched to talk to Amy and Mason, hurried forward to grab Lucy as her voice reached a fever pitch, screaming at Denise. Wyatt felt like actually stabbing himself in the stomach would be kinder than this. He took Flynn by the elbow. "I'm sorry," he whispered, feeling like it wasn't enough, it would never be enough, any set of words he could possibly come up with couldn't touch the way he felt or what he now owed to Flynn for this.

Flynn didn't respond, didn't say anything as Lucy's yelling and screaming faded and they got in the elevator, going down to the holding cells. It wasn't until Wyatt had undone his handcuffs and put him in the cell that he finally spoke, finally looked at Wyatt.

"She's had a long night," he said. "She'll be fine in the morning."

"What about you?" Wyatt wanted to press himself up against the bars until he was as close to Flynn as he could possibly get. Instead he just wrapped his hand around the bars, feeling the cold metal inside of his fingers, the comparison between flesh and iron.

Flynn wrapped his hand around Wyatt's and Wyatt thought that he might pass out. "This isn't your fault."

"That's not an answer."

"Logan!" Denise's voice was firm. "The team finished searching your apartment, you'll want to see this."

Wyatt mouthed _I didn't know about the apartment _as Denise said, "_now_," and he had to pull away.

"We're going to figure this out!" he yelled at Flynn, hoping he sounded confident instead of desperate.

Flynn didn't answer.

* * *

Lucy shoved Rufus off of her. "Rufus, I love you, but right now if you or anyone else touches me I will clock them." She felt like she was back in the car, no, a coffin, tighter, tight, her own skin a prison, everything closing in around her, layers and layers that locked her tight inside until she couldn't breathe.

"I'm going to find where Jess got to," Amy said. Lucy almost snapped at her that she didn't know what Amy's girlfriend could possibly do to be useful, but she held it in, swallowed the spiked words down even as they scraped at her throat. Jess was a cop and had known Flynn for years. Maybe she could shed some light on this. And it gave Amy something to do, something they were all clearly itching for.

"Rufus, why don't you walk with me," Mason said. "See if Jiya would like to take a break from all the lovely corpses."

They were letting her alone, giving her space. Lucy appreciated that, but it didn't do anything about this itch under her skin, the need to claw it off to try and get some actual damn _breathing room_—

Denise and Wyatt appeared, the latter looking like he'd been run over repeatedly by a truck and then not slept for ten days. They headed for Denise's office and Lucy made a beeline for them. "Captain Christopher!"

Denise didn't look very surprised to see her there. "Preston, I ought to have known you'd continue to press your case."

"You can't possibly think Flynn would hurt anyone."

"That's what I said," Wyatt added, sounding relieved that he finally had an ally in this.

"Then would you care to explain what the team I sent to your apartment found in the back of Flynn's closet?" Denise asked, indicating a black bag that was on her desk, tagged for evidence.

Denise walked over, pulled on some gloves she had waiting (Denise had a flair for the dramatic too, although Lucy knew that the woman would calmly and quietly kill herself rather than ever admit to it) and began to pull things out of the bag. Rope. Barbed wire. A knife. All the things that Flynn would have needed to murder Tessa Horton.

"Stop, okay? You've made your point!" Wyatt sounded like he was close to throwing a chair at the wall just to give himself the satisfaction of breaking something. "I get it! Fine! But if that was Flynn's, Flynn couldn't have hid it, okay? We live in each other's pockets, half the time we fall asleep in each other's bedrooms, we borrow clothes. Well." Wyatt looked down at himself. "Some clothes. But the point is! I've never seen that before and I know Flynn's closet, if he had that in there I would've seen it!"

"And why would Flynn hold onto that evidence for so long?" Lucy added. "It's been weeks! He's smart, he knows how this works."

"The murderer was someone who knew how crime scenes work, they were very thorough in their work."

"Except for y'know the necklace between the couch cushions, really?" Lucy adopted the most scathing tone she could. She didn't even care if it was hurtful. "And the fingerprints on the door frame? Those are sloppy. If I was writing this—"

"But you're not, are you, Miss Preston?" Denise said, still using her last name in that infuriating way, like she was trying to establish authority. "I admit, the evidence is a bit convenient against him, but we have to follow procedure. And," she added, with a significant look at Wyatt, "this wouldn't be the first time Flynn's come close to a breakdown."

Lucy ignored her and pressed onward. “If I were writing the story where Flynn had a psychotic break, and he started murdering people, it wouldn’t be like this!”

"And how would it be, Lucy!?" Denise snapped, her patience clearly reaching its end point.

This she could do, this was what she was good at, and she hoped to God that if Flynn heard about this that he would forgive her. "Flynn lost his wife and child to a hitman who stabbed them multiple times in an alley. If he suffered a psychotic break, he would be unleashing it in one of two ways: either he would be going after mothers and daughters who reminded him of Lorena and Iris and killing them in a similar manner, or he would be going after people he thought were responsible for their murder, or people who looked like the man who murdered them. This? This—ritual, the symbol he carved—"

"A symbol that you found familiar," Denise countered. "Perhaps because you saw him draw it."

"The murder reads like something out of a book, it reads like someone was performing some kind of ritual, and neither of those fit Flynn's psychological profile! His trauma doesn't match!"

"I need you to stop for a second and think about what the killer has done, what Flynn might have done—"

"What about what _we've _done!?" Lucy screamed. "Distrusting him, arresting him, ready to accept his guilt without question—"

Rufus stuck his head in the door. "Uh—right. Um. Hey guys. The tech crew's finished with Flynn's computer."

"Did they find anything?"

"They flagged…" Rufus's gaze darted to Lucy, then went back to Denise. "There was a document that Lucy emailed to Flynn, it had some snippets of her writing in it, I think from her book that she's working on, and it had… the symbol that was carved on Tessa's forehead."

…that was why it was familiar to her. Fuck, she'd dumped that idea along with several others to bounce off of Flynn over a month ago. "Obviously Flynn was hacked!" she said, knowing that she sounded hysterical.

"This is too perfect." Wyatt shook his head. "Denise, c'mon, if Flynn really did do this would he be this stupid? This obvious? He's smarter than that!"

"My partner would be much smarter about committing a murder might not be the line of defense you want to take here," Denise said. "Don't become a defense lawyer."

"Also, Flynn's being brought into the interrogation room for you," Rufus added. "And has anyone seen Jess?"

"No," Wyatt and Lucy both chorused.

Rufus shrugged and retreated, pulling the door shut behind him.

Denise looked at Wyatt. "You can watch," she said, "but only if you promise to behave."

Wyatt looked stubborn, like he would make no such promise, but Lucy wanted to see Flynn even if he couldn't see her. "You mean we can't go in?" she asked.

"No." Denise picked up some files and the bag with the supplies in it. "And you're lucky that I'm letting you two watch at all when you're so horribly compromised."

"This whole damn precinct is compromised," Wyatt spat.

"Which is why another precinct will undoubtedly be taking over in the morning," Denise said. "Would you rather trust them with Flynn? Or have me start out with him?"

Lucy felt like her heart was pounding so loudly it was making the entire building shake. Denise stared Wyatt down, infuriatingly calm about it.

After a moment, Wyatt nodded. He looked like he wanted to throw up.

"Very well." Denise started for the door. "Not a word from either of you, or I'll kick you both out."

Lucy wanted to say _I'd love to see you try_ but she was scared that Denise actually would.

* * *

Flynn arched an eyebrow as Denise entered the room with a black bag. "Breaking out the enhanced interrogation methods already?"

Denise dropped the bag loudly onto the table, glaring at him. "Stop acting like this is a walk in the park for me, Garcia."

"Ooh, the first name, I'm really in trouble, aren't I?"

"Shocking as it seems to be to everyone, I do actually possess a heart, and feelings." Denise sat down across from him. "And I do care about you. I don't want this to be happening, I don't like it happening, and I want to find another answer that explains all of this." She leaned forward. "But I can't do that if you don't cooperate, Flynn."

"Did I resist arrest? No. Did I protest? No. I went like a lamb." Flynn spread his hands. "I'm cooperating."

"Great." Denise patted the bag. "Then why don't you tell me what this is."

"I've never seen that before, but it sure looks like a gym bag."

Denise looked up at the ceiling. Flynn looked up there too. "Y'know, I've always thought that one stain looked like a rabbit."

"Damn it, Flynn, can't you take this seriously for two seconds!?"

Flynn stood up, or tried to, but he was handcuffed to the table and so the movement was aborted. "You think I don't take this seriously? My best friend, the—" He stopped himself before a dangerous truth slipped free. "—the person who has seen me at my worst, he just arrested me, in front of all of my friends, on the orders of someone else I also considered a friend, someone I trusted! People who have seen me at the absolute depths of my—my anger and my grief—you saw me and you saw what I could do and yet you still think that I'm capable of that. Of hurting that girl, of killing anyone but especially in that way." Flynn sat back down. "Yeah, I think I'm done talking to you."

Denise looked at him for a moment. "You don't want to hear any more about the evidence we found?"

Flynn snorted. "No, thanks."

"You'll have to talk eventually, Flynn."

"Fine." He looked up at her. "You want me to talk?" Wyatt had looked like he was having a mental breakdown in real time as he'd put Flynn in the cell. Flynn wasn't going to push Wyatt any farther. And that left one other person who he knew he could trust. "I'll only talk to Lucy."

* * *

Wyatt couldn't watch this.

He was watching it, but he couldn't, and he knew he shouldn't, but somehow it was like a horror film and he couldn't tear his eyes away, seeing Flynn rant at Denise, chained like an animal, so full of helpless rage and disappointment.

He didn't realize he was crying until Lucy's hand found his.

"It's okay," Lucy whispered. "It's okay if you cry, Wyatt."

_Honey, _he remembered Jess saying to him, but somehow, when her gentleness hurt, Lucy's just felt like aloe vera on a burn.

"He didn't do this," he croaked. "He didn't, Lucy, he didn't."

"I know," Lucy promised. Unlike Jess, unlike Rufus, unlike Denise. "We'll get him out, Wyatt. We'll get him out."

Wyatt squeezed her hand so tightly it had to hurt, but Lucy never once complained or flinched, and Wyatt though, _oh fuck, I'm in love with you, too_.

* * *

Even in lockup, Flynn somehow dominated the space. The bench in the cell was a bit short for him, and he was hunched over his knees, looking a bit like that statue of the thinker. He glanced up as she entered.

"You've looked better," he noted.

"You said you'd only talk to me," Lucy retorted, instead of pointing out that she'd been running around from the mafia all night, then taking down a hitman, and then protesting his innocence until Denise probably dreamed of Lucy getting laryngitis. "Rather dramatically, I might add."

She sat down on the ground next to the cell, and Flynn crawled over to sit next to her. Lucy wanted to take his hand so badly it felt like she was missing a limb to _not _do it.

_I want to know the shape of your bones against mine, _she thought, but did not say. Maybe she'd make it a line in her novel. God, her novel. The parts of which she'd sent to Flynn that was now being used to condemn him.

"We'll get to the bottom of this," she said quietly.

"You have to look out for Wyatt," Flynn replied, just as quiet. "I fear he's going to do something stupid. Or, well, stupider than usual."

"The symbol the person carved," Lucy said, "do you recognize it?"

"It looked familiar, but I could never find it in my research. It's not from a movie, TV show, novel or comic book, it's not from a real-life religion or cult, and no previous killers have used it."

"It's from a book, all right." Lucy knew she sounded bitter, but she had a right to be. "It's from my book. The excerpts that I sent you."

Flynn raised his head to look at her directly. "_Sranje_. That's why I recognized it."

Lucy nodded.

"Lucy, I…" He wet his lips. "I didn't do it."

"I know you didn't." She leaned against the bars even though they dug into her side, and felt his warmth. "But whoever did this knew us. Intimately. They got into your computer. Your home. They found a way to impersonate you. Get your fingerprints." She paused, realizing how this all sounded. "I'm… I'm sorry. It can't be easy having someone so—having someone invade your life like this."

"It's a fun new way to be messed with," Flynn agreed. "But compared to—well. I'd rather…" He cleared his throat. "Someone can do whatever they want to me. Just so long as… I've been on the other side of it, with someone hurting the people I love, and that's what I can't handle again."

Lucy looked at him. She breathed in the lines of his face, the curve of his jaw, the soft light in his eyes. The way that his hair flopped into his face at the end of a long day (and a very long day it had been). His large hands, currently clasped over each other. The wedding ring he still wore. The breadth of his frame.

_But I'm on the other side, now, _she thought. _I love you, and someone is hurting you, and I can't handle it._

_I love you, and I can't handle that, either._

"Garcia?"

"Hmm?"

It would, somehow, be so easy to say it. To relieve herself of the burden of secrecy. To stop having to hide it.

But then she would be burdening Flynn with knowledge, and it wouldn't really—what would it help, for him to know? It would be about her, not him. And she had spent so long living the life of a hedonist, so long indulging. She wanted to abstain, and somehow, feel fuller from that than she had when she'd been feasting.

Love was about the other person. Not about yourself. Carol had taught her that, leading by wrong example. Lucy would not be her mother.

"I understand. Why you struggle to… have faith."

"It's not something that I want you to understand, exactly. It's not exactly a walk in the park. It's easier, in some ways, to just blindly believe in things working out because someone dictated they should be so."

"I do believe in a higher power. In… something. I also believe in… in free well. I'm not sure those two are compatible. But there you have it." She shifted to look at him directly. "But if there's one thing I believe in, it's your innocence. We'll get you out, Flynn."

Flynn pressed the line of their arms together through the bars. "Now people, I do have faith in. You, Wyatt. My family. But this isn't… don't… you can't, fail me, if you don't figure out what happened. You haven't failed me."

Yeah, she'd be the judge of that.

"Is there anything I can bring you?" she asked. _I love you._

"Nothing at the moment. But I'll let you know."

"Of course. You just… you just say the word." _I love you._

Flynn gave her a small, taut smile. "If there's anything tonight's taught me, Lucy, it's that you and I are quite the team. I know if anyone can figure out what happened, it's you."

"I will. I promise." _I love you. _She stood up. "I'll be back in the morning." _I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I—_

"Goodnight, Lucy."

"Goodnight, Flynn."

She walked away.

* * *

He couldn't really sleep on this stupid bench. It was far too small and cramped, and it wasn't comfortable anyway, but when a guy was actually tall…

A guard entered, and Flynn sighed. "The other guy got tired of me already?" he called.

The guard walked up to him, stepping into the moonlight coming in from the single window, and Flynn shot right up onto his feet.

Nicholas Keynes, sporting an officer's uniform with a name tag that said _Tyson_, grinned. "Miss me?"

Flynn crossed the pathetically small cell in two strides, shoving his hand through the bars to try and wrap it around Keynes' throat. Keynes just chuckled, stepping back out of the way. "Nice try. You'll have to do better than that if you want to get me. And I doubt that'll happen since you're stuck in here for the foreseeable future."

“What the _fuck _did you do to Wyatt!?” Flynn growled.

Keynes looked surprised for a moment, blinking, and then a slow smile spread across his face. "Oh, is he still cut up about all that? I mean, really, we just had a little chat between friends."

"If you threatened him—if you laid a single hand on him, Keynes—"

"Pfft, please, I don't swing that way. Unlike other people I could name."

Flynn retracted his hand. "Are we really going to play the homophobia card right now?"

"Aww, Flynn, trust me, jokes about your position on the baseball team are the least of your worries right now." Keynes leaned nonchalantly against the wall. “But really, isn't it obvious why I fucked with your precious boy's head?" His smile grew. "It was to hurt you."

Flynn had always known he was capable of murder, but this truly sealed the deal for him.

"Y’know at first I was just gonna mess with him because, well, he’s your last tie to Lorena, isn’t he? He’s her brother. He’s the last bit of her, and of Iris, left on this earth. But then… then I observed you and oh, he’s so much more than that to you, isn’t he? Him and your little pet writer both.” Keynes got close, right up to the bars. “Why do you think I let him live that night, huh? Why do you think I didn’t find Lucy Preston and wrap that thin smooth rope around her pretty little neck and pull… it… taut?”

Keynes’ grin was wild, feral, skeletal. “Because I want to destroy you slowly. You’ve been after me twice, now, and your stupid little partner foiled me, and now you’re both going to pay for it. I hope you liked Tessa, by the way. She does look _so _much like our dear novelist. My usual type is blondes but I thought that would give it an extra-special touch.”

"If you touch them, either of them, if you so much as harm a _hair_—"

"Oh, no no _no_." Keynes clucked his tongue. "I'm going to do to them what the person who killed Lorena and Iris did to you. You know, don't you, that there's really nothing worse in this world than losing someone you love and being helpless to stop it. Well, you're going to go to county tomorrow. Plenty of friends of mine in there. Spoon shanks aren't exactly the most elegant of execution methods but we gotta make do, y'know?" He ran his eyes over Flynn like he could already see the blood spilling out of him. "Lucy and Wyatt will have to live with knowing that there was nothing they could do to save you, that you were innocent, and you died, alone and in pain, with the world believing you were a killer."

Flynn could feel himself starting to shake with the force of his fury. "I'm getting out of here," he spat. "And I will find you. And I will kill you."

"I look forward to watching you fail," Keynes replied, and then he walked away, and was gone.

* * *

"What do you _mean _there's no evidence Keynes was there!?" Wyatt yelled.

Jess winced.

"I mean that the cameras record only Flynn by himself—"

"Clearly he erased the tape or had it run on a loop—"

"No officers report a uniform being stolen—"

"Damn it, Denise, do you want him to die!?" Wyatt demanded. "Because right now, it sounds like you want him to die!"

Wyatt stormed out before Denise could say anything in response.

Denise looked at Jess. "And where were you last night?"

Jess raised and lowered one shoulder. "A friend called in a favor. I helped them out."

Denise seemed to accept that. "We'll need all hands on deck for the next couple days."

"Yes, ma'am." They sure were going to need all hands on deck in a few hours, that was for sure.

* * *

Amy found Jess in the evidence lockup, scrounging around in what looked like an old cold case box from… what looked like a bombing. "Any reason you've been ignoring my calls?"

Jess slammed the lid on the box shut. "You can't be down here."

"I thought we established I'm very good at doing things I shouldn't." Amy leaned against the shelves. "What are you doing down here? And where were you last night?"

Jess put the box back on the shelf. "Amy, I'm serious, you need to leave."

Amy swallowed. "I know that there are… that there are parts of you, that… Lucy says you're hurting. She doesn't know how, she just, senses it. She told me she could… that she picked up on something. And I know that you've had the whole thing with Wyatt. And that hurt you. But you can trust me. I'm not really, you know, the best at relationships. And I'm young. But I really, really want to do this with you for real and I know Flynn was your friend too and I—"

Jess held up a hand. "Amy. Baby." She put her hands on Amy's shoulders. "It's not that I don't want to let you in. But what I'm—who I—look, if you knew what kind of person I was—you wouldn't want to say the things you're saying right now."

Amy seized Jess's hands and planted her feet. "Try me."

Jess leaned back a little, then squared her shoulders and looked Amy dead in the eye. "When we were both seventeen, I killed Wyatt's father."

That—that was not what Amy had expected Jess to say.

Jess squeezed her shoulders. "Wyatt's dad was—he was the worst. He would terrorize Wyatt. Beat him with a belt. Fuck with his head. Wyatt was doing some—some pretty desperate things to try and get away from him. And I knew something had to be done, and nobody would help us, there was no help in that stupid town, so I—I came over when he was drunk, and I held his head under the water…" Jess's hands slid down Amy's shoulders to her biceps. "It's kind of scary, how easy it is to get someone to drown. All you need is a few inches of water. It was the sink, you know, it was filled with water and dirty dishes and I just held him under, put all my damn weight on him…"

Jess released her. "Wyatt knows. He came in right at the end. And back then the idea of hiding anything from him was… it didn't even occur to me." Jess shrugged. "That that's the kind of person I am, Amy. I've killed for the people that I love. And I don't regret it. I regret a lot of things, but not that. And I will do it again, for my family. So if you’re not okay with that, you need to get out of my way, now.”

"Who are you going to kill?"

Jess pulled something out of the box—what looked like a small, black, kind of gas mask. "We're not killing this time, but we are about to break a lot of laws."

Amy held out her hand. "Tell me what to do."

* * *

Flynn heard the door opening and jumped up, ready for Keynes—only for two women to enter, wearing small, black gas masks.

"Jess?" He paused, squinting as he realized who the other person was. "Amy!?"

Jess handed him a gas mask. "Put this on." She slid a key into the lock as Flynn put his mask on.

"What for?" he asked.

Amy pulled something out of her pocket and exited the room. A moment later, Flynn saw smoke begin to slide in. "That's what for," Jess said, yanking open the cell door. "We're getting you out of here before Keynes or one of his friends can."

Flynn couldn't exactly grin with the gas mask on, but he did nudge Jess with his elbow. "Knew I could count on you."

"I was always the crazy one," Jess replied. "Now let's go, Dufresne."

They made their way through the precinct, the night guards all passed out from the gas, on the ground. Flynn felt some sympathy, but mostly, he was too determined to care. They were going to turn the tables, now. They were going to get answers.

He was taking Keynes down.

* * *

Wyatt knew something was up the moment he walked into the precinct and Denise stormed up to him. "Did you help plan this?"

"Plan what!?"

"Flynn's missing from his cell," Rufus said. "Someone scrubbed the cameras. All the guards were knocked out."

Wyatt whipped around to glare at Denise, panic coursing through him. "I told you! He told you, Lucy told you, we all told you, Keynes would go after him but you didn't listen, you didn't believe him—"

“As far as the DA is concerned, this is a prisoner escape,” Denise said.

“You’re saying Flynn did this!?” Wyatt yelled.

Lucy came in, being towed by Amy. "Jess texted me," Amy said breathlessly. She had dark circles under her eyes like she hadn't gotten a lot of sleep.

"Flynn's gone!?" Lucy asked, spitting like a cat at Denise. "If he's dead, if he's _dead_—"

"I haven't seen her freak out this much since they didn't have the book she wanted at the New York Central Library," Amy noted.

That was a weird as fuck comparison. Wyatt glanced at Amy, who smiled brightly at him.

Too brightly.

Wyatt tugged on Lucy's arm. "Hey, hey, c'mon, let's take a walk."

Lucy yanked her arm back. "I don't want to take a walk, I want to—"

"Lucy." Wyatt took her hand and squeezed tightly. "I need a walk. Please?"

After a moment, Lucy nodded. "All right." She glared at Denise. "I'm coming back!"

Once they were outside, Wyatt booked it for his car. "C'mon, we gotta hurry."

"Where are we going?"

"Amy just compared your freak out over Flynn possibly being dead to a time you freaked out over not getting a book you wanted at the library," Wyatt explained. "That's not a fair comparison at all. So why would she say that? And she said the New York Central Library, specifically. Why name a specific library? Do you know where Amy was last night?"

Lucy inhaled sharply. "The book I wanted—it was in the history section, it was _Devil in the White City_. I remember it."

"Then let's go." Wyatt opened the passenger door for her and they tore out of the parking lot.

Lucy led the way through the library, Wyatt's heart hammering as he followed her. What if this was a wild goose chase? What if he was making far too many ridiculous assumptions? What if…

Lucy froze, and Wyatt nearly ran into her.

Sitting in the history section, reading _Six Women of Salem_, wearing a pair of aviator glasses and a leather jacket and looking annoyingly stylish for someone who'd been busted out of prison, was—

"_Flynn_," Lucy whispered, her voice agonized, and Flynn looked up, and Wyatt found himself moving before he even planned to. He hit Flynn right as Flynn finished standing, and they collided, Wyatt holding on and feeling Flynn's arms and chest instinctively, checking for wounds.

"I'm still in one piece," Flynn said dryly, as Lucy reached them and squeezed herself against his side. "Jess got me out. With help from your sister, I might add."

"Of course it was Jess." Wyatt owed that woman so damn big for this. "She—she'd do something like that, for someone she cared about. For a friend."

Flynn gently detached himself and sat down, gesturing for Wyatt and Lucy to do the same. "The tone in which you say that worries me," he noted.

"Jess… well. I don't think she'd mind you knowing. She… she got rid of my father. Permanently." Wyatt sat down on the table. "That's why we became cops. So that if anyone got suspicious we could cover it up from the inside."

"I knew there was something, I fucking knew it!" Lucy whispered triumphantly. "But that doesn't matter—I mean it does, of course, Wyatt, but—but we have to clear your name, Flynn."

"The computer we can see if it was hacked," Wyatt said. "Same with finding out how Keynes broke into our house, we can investigate that. Your fingerprints, easy enough to plant at the crime scene. But the necklace…"

"You're in the CCTV footage," Lucy said, her voice going small. "How did he fake that?"

"I think I might know, actually," Flynn said. He pulled out a newspaper. "What do you do in a big city when you want someone to play a role?" He opened the page to a notice in the classified section. "You cast it. Keynes used a double before. Someone to help be a patsy. It makes sense he'd do it again."

Wyatt took the newspaper. _Calling all lookalikes for the following roles. _It listed various fictional doctors from various television shows, including…

"Oh my God." Wyatt shoved the paper at Lucy so she could see. "When I said you looked like whatshisname from ER I was fucking _joking_."

"Well, Keynes got someone," Flynn replied. "Now we just have to figure out who got the role."

* * *

"I can't believe the guy Keynes used was Australian," Lucy noted.

"Hhmph," Flynn said.

He had been rather grumpy since meeting his body double that Keynes had chosen, apparently deciding the guy wasn't a passable likeness. It was adorable.

Not that Lucy would ever tell him that.

"He did have a nice jawline."

"Hhmph."

"Y'know, I never took you for _vain_."

"I am not vain!" Flynn protested.

"You're a little vain, Mr. Designer Jackets," Wyatt replied.

The guy had said he'd been told the role was for a reality show gig, and that he'd been paid by check. Which was why the three of them were currently hunched over a library computer tracing the check to a bank account, which they then traced to a withdrawal from an insurance company…

…the insurance company that Tessa had worked for.

"Finally, we're getting somewhere," Wyatt breathed in relief. Lucy had to agree. She knew Flynn was innocent. She had always known it. But proving it as another story and she had been worried about that, worried since the beginning. Especially when Keynes had had months to plan this, driven by revenge. There were few stronger drives than that.

Except, perhaps, for… well.

"I texted Rufus," Wyatt whispered. "He's checking Tessa's planner, it's in the evidence locker."

A few minutes later, Wyatt's phone lit up. "She had an appointment with someone linked to that account," Wyatt hissed in triumph. "The appointment was at this address, he sent a picture."

"Tell Rufus and Jess to meet us there," Flynn said. "Let's go."

Lucy looked up, and saw a woman talking to the librarian at one of the help desks, gesturing towards Flynn. "Denise must've put out an alert on Flynn, I think our time's up anyway."

"Remind me to thank Denise for the lovely weekend," Flynn muttered, sounding disturbingly like Ian Malcolm. The black leather jacket helped.

The building was an abandoned one by the river, in a dingy neighborhood. Tessa had come here? Willingly?

"You should stay here," Flynn noted as Rufus and Jess got out of their squad car.

"Say that one more time," Lucy replied, accepting her bulletproof WRITER vest from Jess (a gag gift from Amy and Mason that had surprisingly come in handy). She smiled sweetly at Flynn. "I dare you."

Flynn smiled softly at her, then gave a sort of half-bow.

The building was empty, condemned judging by the signs on some of the first floor doors and windows. But on the third floor, overlooking the river bridge, was a workshop. A table, covered in blueprints for Flynn and Wyatt's apartment. Books on how to learn computer coding and hacking. And a police officer's uniform, neatly folded.

"Holy shit," Rufus said.

"I'm holding this over Denise forever," Wyatt said.

Lucy didn't say anything.

She found an empty room and burst into tears.

* * *

Flynn drummed his fingers against the steering wheel as they drove back to the precinct. They were all exhausted. They'd had to stay with the evidence while Rufus and Jess had called it in, then waited for everyone to get there (Jiya had done a running leap and flung herself at him and he'd just barely caught her in a hug in time, nearly falling over not from the weight of her but from sheer shock) so that Denise could see for herself and CSU could gather evidence, and by now night was falling.

Lucy was in the backseat, half asleep. Wyatt was in the front passenger seat, staring at Flynn's hands like he couldn't quite bear to look at the rest of him but still had to keep an eye on something to make sure Flynn was real.

"You scared us, disappearing," Wyatt said at last. "I thought you'd—and that Keynes had—yeah. It wasn't fun." He turned to look out the window.

"I know I should feel satisfied," Flynn said. "But I—I can't stop feeling like we got all of that evidence too easily. There it was, all of it, just tied up with a bow. All it was missing was the gift wrapping. If Keynes really wanted to cover his tracks then why have that bank account link to Tessa and the appointment?"

"Everyone gets sloppy," Wyatt replied. "And I think a part of Keynes wanted everyone to know. He likes the attention, isn't that part of the serial killer profile?"

Flynn shrugged. It didn't sit right with him, exactly, but he supposed it made sense.

Silence fell. Flynn turned onto the bridge over the river.

"I'm sorry," Wyatt said.

"What for?"

"For—I antagonized Keynes, back when I figured out it was him. I pushed his buttons. Called him out for being a pathetic little fuckboy."

"Well, it's true, he is."

"True or not, it pissed him off."

"Wyatt, you pissing him off probably saved your life." Flynn shifted to glance at Wyatt while still driving. "Keynes told me that he was going to kill you to get at me. Because he knew I—you were my last link to Lorena, he said. He saw how close we were. But then—you made him want to punish you, too, and straight up killing you wasn't punishment but watching me die? That was punishment for both of us. I would die knowing that you and Lucy were suffering through what I did with Lorena and Iris, and you would have to live knowing I was innocent and that you'd failed me."

"He would've been right. I almost failed you. I did fail you. Jess and Amy saved you. Not me."

"You did _not _fail me," Flynn growled, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. "You—"

Something slammed into them from behind and the car went spinning out. Lucy woke up, screaming, clawing at the windows and doors as the car spun, spun, and then crashed into one of the guard rails for the bridge.

"What the fuck!?" Wyatt said, opening the car door.

"Get me out," Lucy screamed, in a panic. "Get me out!"

She wrenched her door open. "Lucy, don't!" Flynn yelled.

"She doesn't care, it's her claustrophobia," Wyatt shouted back.

Gunshots echoed. Flynn grabbed his own gun, and then he heard Lucy scream again, and he heard that infuriating voice—

"Miss Preston, we meet again at last."

"Shit." Wyatt darted for her—Flynn could see Keynes through the rear window of the car, his arm around Lucy's throat from behind, a gun pressed to her head—and Keynes pointed the gun at Wyatt. "Nuh-uh, none of that, cowboy."

Keynes started to move back, back towards… Flynn's blood went cold.

Keynes was headed for the edge of the bridge.

“I want you to watch!” Keynes screamed. “I want you to watch as she dies! I know all about your little stunt in college, Miss Preston, I know all about the car.”

Lucy was yanking at Keynes' arm. "Wyatt! Flynn!" She looked wide-eyed, terrified, and Flynn wanted to fill Keynes with so many holes he could be played like a flute.

"Oh, did you know about that? Boys?" Keynes was focused on Wyatt, so Flynn slipped out of the car, crouching down. "Little Lucy here took a plunge into the river. It's her big origin story. Why she decided life was too short and to seize the day! Follow her dream! Become a writer!"

Lucy was clawing desperately at Keynes. "Don't, don't, don't, Wyatt, Flynn, Wyatt please don't, please don't let me go back down there—"

Wyatt tried to move forward, or feinted like he was, and Keynes rounded on him. Turning his back on Flynn.

Flynn darted around silently, got up behind Keynes—he would have one shot at this, literally. If he failed, if any of it went wrong, Lucy would go plunging into the river.

"She's going to die!" Keynes roared. "You're all going to die, and you're going to die knowing that you all couldn't save each other, you—"

Flynn fired.

Keynes jerked, slipped, Lucy screamed, and Flynn lunged forward as Keynes fell towards the river. He grabbed onto Lucy, hauling her back, and she sagged in his arms as Wyatt darted to the edge, peering over.

Flynn heard a distant splash.

"I can't see him," Wyatt said. "I'm calling it in. Lucy?"

Lucy was clinging to Flynn, curled up in a ball. He held her tightly, stroked her hair, tried to think of something to say to make this better. She hadn't signed up for this. She'd signed up for solving fun mysteries, tagging along, not getting caught in the crosshairs of a serial killer's vengeance against Wyatt and Flynn—mostly Flynn, honestly.

Wyatt crouched down in front of her, taking her hand. "Lucy?"

"I'll b-be o-okay," she managed, her teeth chattering from fear.

Wyatt looked at Flynn. "Call it in," Flynn murmured.

Wyatt squeezed Lucy's hand. Lucy nodded, squeezing back, her hair falling loose, her eyes and nose pink with crying. Flynn realized, dimly, that he had gotten blood on her when he'd shot Keynes, the light blue of her dress now stained. He'd shot a man in front of her.

"I'm sorry."

Lucy curled further into him. "I-it's not your fault. It's his. He—he did this, he planned this."

"What do you mean?"

Lucy looked up at him. "Don't you see? Flynn. Keynes' whole plan the last time was to disappear into witness protection. To frame someone else for his crimes. Wyatt stopped that from happening. Now—now he got what he wanted. I heard you and Wyatt talking, about how easy it was to find all his evidence. He knew we'd find him. He wanted us to find him. He used us to disappear and start over, just like he wanted the first time, just like we ruined the first time.”

Flynn stared at her, his stomach sinking.

"Denise and everyone are on their way," Wyatt said, pocketing his phone. "They'll start dragging the river."

"They won't find anything," Flynn said.

Wyatt stared at him. "Why no—you don't think—"

"I think," Lucy said, "that if this were a book, we wouldn't be at the end yet."

Flynn's stomach churned, and he held Lucy even tighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The episode plots here are taken from After Hours (5x08) and Probable Cause (5x05).
> 
> The murder mystery debate that Flynn and Lucy are having at the beginning of the chapter is Dorothy L. Sayers (Flynn) versus Agatha Christie (Lucy), specifically Have His Carcase versus Evil Under the Sun.


	7. Chapter 7

Amy woke up to a warm weight wrapped around her middle, with someone’s nose poking her at the top of her spine, and smiled.

She turned over carefully so that she wouldn’t dislodge Jess’s arm around her, and found that Jess was already awake, blinking slow and sleepy at Amy as Amy nudged their noses together. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Jess replied. She stared at Amy for a long moment, something heavy in her eyes, and Amy smiled a little more broadly.

“What?”

Jess raised her shoulder up and down. “I just can’t always believe that you’re real.”

Amy pinched herself. “Yup, definitely real.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Can you be serious for two seconds?”

Amy sobered up, kissing Jess’s nose. “Yes.” _For you, yes._

Jess took a deep breath, reaching up and brushing some of Amy’s hair out of her face. “I’m not really a—a good person. And I know that. I’m stupidly loyal and that’s probably my only good trait and it backfires on me spectacularly all the time because I’ll stick with someone even when it’s toxic and I shouldn’t. And I never thought—I think part of why I stayed with Wyatt for so long wasn’t just out of loyalty, but because I didn’t think that anyone else would ever want me, the way that I was. With all my… gray areas. But you—” Jess shrugged again and gave a small, rueful smile. “You just jumped right it, you didn’t even flinch. I guess I’m—waiting for the other shoe to drop, for it to not—”

Amy kissed her. “I don’t think there’s really a thing as good people or bad people. Good and bad are—they’re static, and people aren’t. People change. They grow. I think of it more as—are you trying to do better, all the time? Trying to do better, to be better, that’s what matters.”

“But I would kill again,” Jess whispered. “For you. I broke Flynn out because he’s my friend. I—the law doesn’t matter to me. What people say is wrong doesn’t matter to me. Not if it—not if the people I care about are safe.”

“And it’s what I love about you,” Amy replied, her voice rising in its insistence. She took Jess’s hand. “I helped you break Flynn out and it wasn’t because of you. Or, well, not _just _because of you.” She smiled, kissing Jess’s knuckles. “I did it because I believed in what you were doing. I’m kind of a chaotic type myself, don’t know if you noticed. We’re two peas in a pod, Jessica Logan. Rebels with a cause.”

Jess finally smiled back at her. “I did always see myself pulling off James Dean’s outfit rather well…”

Amy grinned and pulled Jess to her, and there wasn’t much talking for some time.

* * *

Rufus set a donut in front of Lucy. “Actually doing paperwork for once, huh?”

Lucy was in Wyatt’s chair at his desk, taking care of the less-glamorous part of detective work that nobody in the movies ever really mentioned: filing all the reports that came with a case.

“I do paperwork!”

“Wyatt does more paperwork than you do, Lucy, and that’s saying something considering Flynn’s been joint-filing their reports for two years now.”

“Tell me, do they joint-file their taxes, too?” Lucy replied with a grin, accepting the donut.

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Rufus leaned against the desk. He liked Lucy. Sometimes her white feminism ran smack into his, well, entire existence, but a well-placed bit of sass would have her stepping back and re-evaluating, and he appreciated that about her. “I heard that somebody’s apartment is feeling rather empty and quiet lately.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Is that what Mason said? Yes, Amy’s been spending a lot of time at Jess’s place. Which I’m sure you know, you’re over at my apartment half the time anyway. I’m glad you’re hitting it off with Mason, honestly. Sometimes I feel like—Amy and I were all he had.”

“I’m not sure Flynn would agree with you.”

“Flynn’s just protective of you.”

That was genuinely the last thing he expected Lucy to say. “Flynn’s… what?”

Lucy now looked about as surprised as Rufus felt. “You—you’re best friends.”

“Wyatt is Flynn’s best friend.”

“Wyatt is Flynn’s… Wyatt.” Lucy’s mouth twisted oddly momentarily before smoothing out. “But he values you, Rufus. He’s really—he sees that you’re—well I don’t know, I don’t know how you’re feeling, but I think that he thinks you’re questioning some stuff about your life and he just—he cares.”

Rufus hadn’t… well sure, Flynn was a caring guy, but Flynn showed it mostly through sass and Rufus was never sure… he and Flynn’d had a rocky start to their work relationship. It was bound to happen with their snarky personalities. Also Flynn had kind of almost gotten Rufus shot by a mobster.

It was a long story.

Lucy peered at him. “Are you… your eyes are misting up.”

“They’re not,” Rufus replied. “Okay, maybe they are. I’m just gonna find Flynn and hug him.”

“I would like video footage of his face when you do so,” Lucy said with a grin.

Denise poked her head out of her office. “Lucy, Rufus, we’ve gotten a call, if you could meet Jiya down at the morgue?”

Ah, duty called, as always.

Didn’t stop Rufus from hugging Flynn the moment they met up in the morgue. “Oomph,” Flynn said. “Is today my birthday and I forgot?”

“Can’t a guy just appreciate his friend?” Rufus replied, pulling back and clapping Flynn on the shoulder. “Anyway, Jiya my love, what’ve we got?”

Jiya gave him a look that said _we talked about use of pet names in public_ but she was also blushing and pressing her lips together in that way that indicated she was trying to hold in a smile, so Rufus figured he’d gotten away with it, just this once. Jiya pulled back the sheet on the body, revealing a brunette woman in her mid-twenties.

“Whitney Williams,” Jiya said. “She was brought into the hospital with convulsions, went into cardiac arrest, the doctors couldn’t bring her back.”

“And she believed she was a victim of foul play, that someone did this to her?” Lucy asked.

Jiya nodded. “Her last words were that someone did this to her, and the word ‘Diamondback’. And I agree. The doctors did blood work on her, and the results came back positive for a crap ton of digoxin. It’s technically a heart medication but it’s derived from the foxglove plant and it can be deadly, especially if you’re given it and you have no need of heart medication—an arrhythmic heart? It can help. A normal, healthy heart? Bad news.”

“Ironic,” Wyatt noted.

“Apparently, according to the tests, she was given it directly from the plant, not in any purified form,” Jiya added.

“So someone didn’t feed her heart medication,” Lucy said, “they literally added, what, crushed foxglove to her food or something? Ooh, or put it in her nightly tea… or…”

“Okay, slow down, Carolyn Keene,” Flynn said. “Did she have anything on her when she died?”

“Her luggage,” Jiya said.

Flynn looked at Rufus. “Will you take your hug back if I ask you to go through it?”

Rufus gave a put-upon sigh. “I guess I’ll let you keep the hug. Just this once.”

Flynn gave him a small, warm smile, and Rufus thought maybe there was more to what Lucy had said than Rufus had thought. Maybe he was closer with Flynn than he’d thought.

It was a surprisingly good feeling.

* * *

Lucy helped to organize the murder board with Wyatt while Flynn spoke with Whitney’s emergency contacts, her mentors from the scholarship program she’d gotten into. Apparently Whitney’s mother had died recently and unexpectedly, and this married couple were the closest thing she had left to family.

It felt uncomfortably familiar to Lucy.

“How are things?” she asked Wyatt, trying to distract herself. “With… how’s he doing?”

Wyatt dutifully kept writing information up on the white board as Lucy stuck up pictures. “He’s been quiet. And Flynn is… Flynn’s never quiet.”

“Compared to you, he is.”

“You know what I mean. He’s always got a fucking comment for something. Or he just looks at you with that, that look, y’know, that _look_ and you just know he’s laughing at some joke in his head about whatever it is you just did.”

Lucy found herself smiling like a dope, but it was okay, because Wyatt was smiling like a dope back at her—and there was something so wonderful and relieving about this, about both of them knowing. She wasn’t envious of Wyatt, or jealous. And he didn’t seem to feel either of those ways about her. They could just… there was something lovely about being able to look at someone and go, _isn’t he wonderful? Don’t you just love him? _and to get the response of _yes he’s wonderful, of course I love him, you’d be crazy not to._

Then Wyatt’s grin slid away. “But he hasn’t done that lately. He’s just… quiet. Staring into nothing. He’s been really gentle lately. And—fuck, I get it, we almost died, but so did he. Keynes sending you and me into the river was the fucking backup plan, his plan was to kill _Flynn_, kill Flynn in prison with—with a shank or something and—I don’t think he’s even thought about that.”

Lucy hung up the final picture and stepped back. “I wish—the only thing I can think to do is to act normal. But it feels so inadequate.”

“Yeah.”

Flynn walked over and Lucy felt herself jump at the same moment she saw Wyatt startle and nearly drop the dry erase marker he was holding. “The mentors don’t know where she went, just that she took time off her internship because of her mother’s death. Said she needed to get some distance and breathe. They said it was entirely understandable.”

Lucy felt her stomach tighten a bit, and forced cheer into her voice. “Well, luckily, I have three theories based on our unlucky lady’s last word.”

“And I’m sure none of these theories will be a waste of my time,” Flynn said, deadpan.

“Theory number one!” Lucy announced. “It’s the password for a murderous underground snake-handling fight club.”

Flynn stared at her.

Lucy grinned. “Theory number two, she was killed by the Marvel character Diamondback, whose special skill was throwing diamond-shaped spikes filled with poison.”

“Wait, you’re a comics nerd?” Wyatt asked.

“I have many hidden depths and talents, Wyatt Logan,” Lucy said, winking at him. “Third theory—”

“If you say animal smuggling ring—”

“How about a ranch?” Jess cut in, handing Flynn a printed-out email. “Diamondback Old West Ranch, it’s a roleplaying place. Think _Westworld _but without the automatons and robot slavery. Techies found this email in her inbox confirming a two-week stay.”

“She was on vacation? In Arizona? For two weeks?” Wyatt asked.

“I mean, Arizona at a role-playing dude ranch, that sounds like the opposite of her life,” Lucy noted. “If she wanted to get out of her head after her mother’s death, immerse herself in a different life, a fantasy, then… that would do it.”

Flynn and Wyatt glanced at her, and Lucy carefully avoided their gazes, aware of how that sounded. Yes, so she had started solving murders with the police after her mother’s death, didn’t mean this was… escapism or whatever.

“She actually cut her trip short, though,” Jess said. “These dates for her reservation? She started only three days ago, look. And her emails also showed a ticket purchased from Southwest airlines from Phoenix airport to JFK that left this morning.”

Flynn’s head shot up. “This morning? Then she was poisoned in Arizona. Somewhere between one and five a.m. local time.”

“Looks like she left in a hurry,” Rufus said, walking up holding a picture in a gloved hand. “Found this in her purse.” He showed it to them. “It’s a bunkhouse key, to the cabin she was staying in at the ranch.”

Flynn took the picture. “I’ll touch base with the local sheriff and coordinate with him on the investigation.” He paused. “Good work, guys.”

He walked off, and Jess stared after him. “Did he just compliment my detective work? Because I found an email?”

“Take advantage of it while it lasts,” Rufus said sagely. “He’ll be back to insulting your plaid shirts before you know it.”

Lucy wasn’t so sure. She watched Flynn walk away, the line of his back ramrod straight in a way she’d never seen it before Keynes, used to Flynn’s sort of slinking, slouching gait, used to the way he sauntered.

Now, it looked like he was marching.

* * *

Flynn bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. “Sheriff, with all due respect, we’re not trying to step on your toes here. Or scare away any visitors to the ranch. We just want to get to the bottom of whoever murdered this girl.”

“But you have no proof that she was murdered at the ranch,” Sheriff Hancock replied. He was an older, portly man, and rather concerned that a city slicker Yank wanted to come in and disrupt the town’s only moneymaker. “She could’ve been poisoned on the way to Phoenix, at the airport, or even on the plane. I can’t authorize an investigation and lose our town money and clients without proof.” He paused. “Best of luck to ya in your investigation.”

He ended the Skype call, and Flynn narrowly resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall. A dull headache was starting to thrum at the base of his skull. It had been ever-present since Keynes’ return and disappearance.

They had trawled the river, on Denise’s orders, but as Flynn and Lucy had suspected, there was no body. Keynes was declared officially dead by the court even though Denise, in a show of trust (one that Wyatt had said was too little, too late—Wyatt and Denise were not currently on speaking terms) had pushed to keep Keynes listed as missing.

He’d gotten what he wanted, the bastard. And now he could go anywhere, be anyone, and kill again.

“Flynn.” He turned to see Denise, Wyatt, and Lucy entering the side room where he’d holed up. “Did you speak with the Sheriff?”

“He refuses to investigate or to let us investigate. He’s worried about it costing the town money from guests hearing about it, leaving the resort, all that jazz.” Flynn folded his arms and shrugged. “Can’t exactly blame him.”

“We can’t just give up the case,” Lucy said. “We need to find out who killed her. Whitney said ‘Diamondback’ for a reason.”

“But we can’t just storm in there,” Flynn pointed out.

“Storm in, no,” Denise said. “But there’s nothing to stop you from going in on your own personal time.”

“What do you mean?” Flynn asked.

Denise shrugged. “Been a while since you did any undercover work. A resort for vacationing families and couples? Sounds like exactly what you need, Flynn.”

“If you’re suggesting that I can’t handle my work—”

Denise held up a hand. “I’m suggesting that you just went through something very stressful, and you deserve a break. Why not go undercover as a… vacation retreat.”

“He can’t go alone,” Lucy pointed out.

“He won’t go alone,” Denise replied. “Obviously someone will go with him.”

Lucy looked excited. “Did you know, that in 18—”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Denise cut her off. “You’re not going anywhere, especially not to a ranch in the middle of nowhere with a murderer, people sporting guns, and riding easily spooked horses.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that Keynes held you hostage and he might not have if you’d known how to properly defend yourself,” Denise replied. “I should’ve put you in training the moment you asked to shadow Flynn and Wyatt. You’re attending mandatory self-defense classes.”

Lucy looked betrayed, but the sort of betrayed that a child got when their parent told them that they’d snuck broccoli into their macaroni and cheese—knowing their parent had gotten one over on them and that the parent was right but hating to admit it and still feeling stiffed.

“Wyatt will go with you,” Denise said, and that was when Flynn noticed that Wyatt looked like a puppy that had been told it was finally getting to go for a walk. Poor guy looked like he was going to vibrate right out of his skin.

Ah, yes. Wyatt was from Texas. Wyatt had a thing for the Wild West. One day, Lucy had told Rufus that Lance Bass, the real-life inspiration for the Lone Ranger, was black, and he’d lorded it over Wyatt for _weeks_.

“He’ll go with me?” Flynn asked. “As what? Two bros just chilling on a dude ranch?”

Denise looked at him like that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.

“Two bros, chilling in a hot tub…” Lucy mumbled quietly.

“I have no idea what that means,” Flynn said honestly.

“You can’t just go as friends,” Denise said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed our sadly sex-obsessed society, Flynn, but friends don’t really go on vacations together. You’ll go as newlyweds. Apparently, going to role play as cowboys is a popular honeymoon option nowadays.”

“Blame Evan Rachel Wood,” Lucy said.

Wyatt blanched, and for the first time in weeks, he spoke directly to Denise. “You want Flynn and me to go to Diamondback for a fake honeymoon!?”

“You two have gone undercover before.” Denise, tactfully, did not mention the fact that Wyatt had decided she was worthy of his attention.

“Not as—that.” Wyatt sounded strangled.

“Thanks, Wyatt, glad to know what you think of the idea of me as your husband,” Flynn replied, more hurt entering his voice than he’d intended. He snapped his mouth shut.

Jess had made it painfully clear to anyone who was unlucky enough to be in hearing distance that Wyatt’s sense of his own masculinity was more fragile than a meringue tower in _The Great British Bake-Off_, but it sure was fun to be reminded that Wyatt was horrified at the very idea of possibly, say, holding Flynn’s hand occasionally for a weekend.

And if the very idea of holding Wyatt’s damn hand had Flynn’s chest doing odd things, well, Flynn had long ago gotten used to that. Wyatt he could handle. Lucy was the one he was still struggling to wrestle himself into submission over.

“I’m going to newlywed you so hard, just you wait,” Wyatt shot back. “I’m going to make _Brokeback Mountain _look like amateur hour, okay? I’m not worried about that.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Denise rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “So it’s settled,” she said. “You two will go undercover, see what you can dig up, Lucy, you’ll stay here. See what angle you can work while you learn to escape a choke hold. Everyone clear?”

Wyatt and Lucy looked equally miserable. “Yes,” they said, with varying degrees of sullenness.

Well, this sure was going to be a fun weekend.

* * *

Lucy knew that Denise didn’t mean that it was in any way Lucy’s fault what had happened with Keynes, and why she’d been useless with the Leo situation. It was just smart to make sure that if Lucy was going to be in situations that might become dangerous that she also be able to protect herself. Denise was looking out for her.

_Denise isn’t Mom._

But that specter of… of judgment, of _you should’ve done better, you should’ve known_… it was like the pages full of red marks she could see in her mind’s eye, the history papers, the essays, the novel drafts all ruthlessly worked through until she could hardly see her own work. It haunted her.

The day of her first class, she arrived twenty minutes early out of nerves. Then she sat in the car and cried for ten minutes. Then she got too claustrophobic, so she got out, and paced up and down a nearby street, struggling to breathe.

The class was run by a tall, wide-hipped woman named Lola. She had a nose ring, a lip ring, and several tattoos, and looked like she should be the DJ for a nightclub. The bi part of Lucy perked up immediately and went _oh hello, remember how amazing women are?_

Lola gave a short introduction and explained jokingly that she’d started these classes because classmates used to tease her for being too tall, too broad, too masculine in her body shape. “Women, and smaller people in general, need to learn how to fend off an attacker who’s bigger than they are. Because it’s most likely that if you are attacked, you will be attacked by someone bigger. But a lot of people are uncomfortable with a man touching them in these ways even in the safety of class so they can practice their moves. So, ta-da.” Lola gestured at herself. “Bigger body, but a gender that people are more comfortable with.”

It made sense. Lucy felt safe around Flynn, but if she was walking down the street and a six foot four man was walking behind her, it was like there was a cattle prod set to the base of her spine screaming at her to get away.

Lola talked them through some basic moves, starting not with punches or anything, but with a few moves designed to get you away.

“Your biggest goal is not to hurt the other person,” she reminded them. “It’s your own safety, and that means getting away. I know if you get the upper hand it’s tempting to try and beat the shit out of them for doing anything to you, but your first goal is to get out of their alive and unharmed. The longer you stay there, the more chances they have to turn the tables.”

She paused. “Not that I won’t be teaching you how to beat the shit out of them. Because I will.” She winked at them all, and Lucy just about melted into the floor.

Lucy came home from class sore in every place she could think of and some places she hadn’t even known existed, but she felt… better. It was good to be so physical. It got her out of her own head and made her more aware of her body.

There was a message on her phone, from Flynn. It was a video.

Lucy opened it and saw that the video was of Wyatt pressing his face to the window of the rental car as they drove up to Diamondback Ranch. “Do you see that?” he kept saying. “Flynn did you see that? Did you see _that_? Did you—”

The phone started shaking from Flynn’s suppressed laughter, and then the video cut out. There were two text messages after it:

_I think he might be excited for this._

And,

_Not as fun without you here. Try not to go too crazy without us._

Lucy melted all over again, and no offense to Lola and her winks, but this was like turning into an absolute puddle of goo.

“Ah, there she is!” Mason said, coming down the stairs. “Sorry to run, off to the museum with Rufus, there’s a new exhibit on Tesla that’s opening tonight and I got us tickets.”

“No worries, I was just going to relax tonight.”

“I thought you had some final revisions to look at?” Mason asked, double-checking his tie in the mirror.

Lucy winced. She did in fact have a few final edits to get through, but there was already a publication date set for the book, advertising was going out, and she was just… so very finished with the whole thing. She loved each and every one of her books but at some point it rather became like having a kid who just needed to get out of the damn house and go to college already.

Of course, having a publication date also meant that advance copies would be out before that, which meant Wyatt and Flynn would get their hands on a copy of _The Missing Minutes _and then—

—maybe she should take her time on these edits after all.

Mason waved at her, she told him to have a fun time, and Lucy headed upstairs for her shower. It was going to be so relaxing—although maybe she should spoil herself and actually take a bath, she had an enormous gorgeous bathtub and what did she even have said bathtub for if she never used it…

Her phone buzzed with a text from Denise.

_Someone called at the precinct for you earlier. I said you weren’t there so they said no problem, they’d call back. Wouldn’t leave a number. Your agent maybe?_

Huh. Lucy normally just got an email from her agent, or editor, or whoever else on her writing team.

_Thanks for the info!_

She sent the text and went to take her shower.

* * *

The very first thing a guest did when arriving at Diamondback Ranch was get their wardrobe for the duration of their stay: an authentic set of wild west outfits.

Wyatt thought he might actually throw up from excitement.

“This is gonna be the coolest fucking thing,” he said.

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “I should’ve put a leash on you.”

Wyatt very much ignored the response _that _got from his body and shot back, “like that would actually stop me.”

“Hi!” a very, very familiar voice said. “Welcome to Diamondback?”

Flynn and Wyatt turned simultaneously to be greeted with none other than Jiya Marri in a dark purple, highly fashionable saloon girl outfit, her hair done up and everything.

“What the hell?” Flynn asked.

“I used to work at a western-themed bar in college, I was the fastest bartender they had.” Jiya grinned and twirled around to show off her dress. “Denise thought having someone as a member of staff would be helpful, and also she wanted someone to keep an eye on you two so you wouldn’t… how did she phrase it… burn down the place.”

She handed Flynn her phone. “Quick, take some good pictures of me to send to Rufus.”

“You’re a cruel, cruel woman,” Wyatt said as Flynn snapped some pictures and Jiya posed.

“Oh hush, I’m keeping the outfit.” Jiya took her phone back. “If he’s very, very good, I’ll wear it for him.”

“Far too much information from the woman I consider a sister about the man I consider a brother,” Flynn replied.

“If you’ll step right this way,” Jiya said, ignoring Flynn and giving them a chipper customer service smile, “you’ll get to pick out your outfits for the duration of your stay. Your fitters will be here in a moment to help you.”

“No wonder it costs so fucking much to come here,” Flynn said under his breath as they were led into their changing rooms.

“Which begs the question as to why a girl who relied on a scholarship and just had to foot her mom’s funeral bills would spend what little money she had to come here,” Wyatt replied.

“Rufus told me that apparently Whitney was recently looking into the local historical society,” Jiya said as Flynn wandered off to get changed. “She was apparently obsessed, and the society said all her visits were after her mother’s death.”

“Historical society, going to a place where they help you step back in time,” Wyatt noted, picking out a few shirts he wanted to try on, “sounds like maybe this had to do with her mom? Was her mom a historian?”

“Not that we’re aware of. Rufus said he’s still going through Whitney’s personal effects.”

“What do you think?” Flynn asked, and Wyatt rolled his eyes as he turned around because finally, Flynn, it didn’t take you a whole fucking hour to pick out a—

Wyatt stared. This was about three fantasies coming true at once. And simultaneously his own personal Hell because he had to stare at Flynn in _that_ and he wasn’t allowed to touch.

Flynn was looking about ten times cooler than Wyatt was, sporting an all-black ensemble with a thick black belt slung low on his hips, black gloves, and a short, wide-brimmed black hat. The collar of a white shirt and a burgundy tie loosely knotted at his throat were the only spots of color, but the different fabrics that made up the jacket, vest, gloves, belt and pants all made for an outfit that was interesting and textured rather than just boring.

Wyatt wondered if Flynn would tattle on him if Wyatt fainted. Probably.

“You look badass,” Jiya said. “Also kind of like you’re going to rob the general store.”

“Oh please,” Flynn retorted. “Like I’d bother with small potatoes, I’m robbing the Wells Fargo stagecoach.”

_I am so fucking in love with you_, Wyatt thought.

“Stick a guy in a hat and boots and he thinks he’s Jesse James,” he said out loud, because he wasn’t very good at saying the right things, but he’d sure as fuck learned how to stop saying the wrong ones.

* * *

Lucy plopped herself into Jess’s desk chair and spun around in it. “Wheeeeeee…”

“Any particular reason you’re here?” Rufus asked. “Bothering me? Instead of finishing your novel edits?”

“I’m not bothering,” Lucy replied. “I’m helping.”

“Is that what you call it,” Rufus muttered. “Great, you want to help me figure out why Whitney was excitedly writing about how this Yavapai word was mistranslated?”

“What’s the word?” Lucy asked, leaning in.

“_Agahila,_” Rufus said. “Apparently it was a part of her research at the historical society but I don’t know why—”

The phone at Flynn’s desk rang.

“I’ll get it!” Lucy said, leaping for the phone. “Hello, Lucy Preston speaking, how can I help you?”

She’d once answered the phone with _Lucy’s House of Pleasure and Pain, how can I direct your call _and Denise had yelled at her for ten minutes about how one answered the phone at a police station.

“Lucy.” A strangely garbled, deep male voice was speaking. “At last. I tried to call you before but you’re a very busy woman.”

Lucy felt an odd shiver crawl up her spine. She snapped her fingers to get Rufus’s attention and he looked up. She pointed at the phone and Rufus walked over to pick up Wyatt’s line, stealthily listening in.

“Well, I’m here now,” Lucy said cheerily. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, but you’ve done so much already.” The voice sounded a trifle mocking. “I wanted to do something for you instead.”

Rufus’s eyebrows shot up and he mouthed _creepy fan? _Lucy shuddered. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had gotten… had crossed a line. But calling the precinct? She’d been careful not to mention the precinct, to try and keep everyone’s real-life identities secret as she’d talked about the inspirations for her new novel. That took some detective work. Was someone really that dedicated?

“So I got you a little gift,” the person went on. “Since you seem to so love solving mysteries.”

“Okay. What’s the mystery?” Lucy tried to keep her voice steady as her stomach grew tight and Rufus frantically waved at Denise, who was doing paperwork in her office.

“It’s a murder mystery. The best kind.”

“I’ll need a bit more than that.”

Denise walked out of her office and Rufus whispered, “Trace the call!”

“Well, I committed the murder,” the voice said. “But I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that. But I’m sure you like a challenge, don’t you Miss Preston? I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.”

The line went dead.

“We traced the call,” Denise said. “Grand Central Station.”

Great. Just one of the busiest places in the entire city. Lucy’s heart hammered in her throat as she road in the car with Rufus and Jess, feeling out of place when she was so used to being with Flynn and Wyatt instead. Fuck, she missed them.

She considered calling them, but… what if it was just a prank call? What if it wasn’t really a murder? The person would have to be pretty daring to kill someone in the middle of the busiest hub of transport in the city, after all.

They got to the phone booths, where the person had called from, and oh. It wasn’t a prank call after all.

A body was slumped in the phone booth, shot four times in the chest.

* * *

Flynn frowned at the room key they’d been given. Everyone was extremely welcoming of the ‘honeymooners’ and it was driving a crazy itch up his spine every time he heard it. Not that—it would’ve done that a bit anyway, if this had been real, since he’d always kind of hated the term ‘honeymoon’, it just sounded ridiculous to him—but this wasn’t real. This wasn’t real, and every time he slung an arm around Wyatt’s shoulders as they met a new person and Wyatt pressed into his side like he fit there, it wasn’t real, and the last time he’d done anything like this it had been with the woman he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with and that woman was dead and his child with her was dead and she was the sister of the man he was currently pretending to be married to and definitely not having to pretend to be in love with and—

“What’s wrong?” Wyatt asked, looking down at the room key as well.

Flynn blinked, feeling like he’d just stepped into bright sunlight. “Ah, the key, it’s not the same as the one that was found in her purse.”

“If it’s not the same, then what did that key unlock?” Wyatt asked.

“Guess we’ll have to ask around. See if Jiya can find out.” Flynn sighed and grabbed their luggage. “Shall we?”

Their room was… it was nice, all right. It had one bed, and was rather cozy, and it was giving Flynn’s stomach a case of the somersaults, but it was. It was nice.

Wyatt blew out a slow breath. “So this is where she was staying.”

“Place’s been cleaned already, I doubt we’ll find much,” Flynn noted. “But maybe she hid something somewhere in here, somewhere housekeeping couldn’t find it.”

Wyatt started crawling under the bed and Flynn was going to roll his eyes and tell him that Whitney would never hide something in that obvious of a spot, when there was a knock a the door.

Wyatt banged his head against the underside of the bed trying to get out. “Fuck.”

Flynn helped him up. “The hell, that bed frame’s metal, don’t cut your head open.”

“I’m not gonna cut it open, you mother hen,” Wyatt groused, holding still so Flynn could press around looking for a cut or lump. “Get the door, you moron.”

Flynn hauled him by the shirt front to the door, yanking it open. “Yes?” he asked, a bit biting in his tone.

“Howdy!” The guy on the other side of the door was also dressed in cowboy gear and seemed friendly. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m your next door neighbor, thought I’d say hi! I’m Greg, by the way, I probably should’ve led with that.”

“Flynn,” Flynn said, shaking his hand. “And this is—my husband, Wyatt.”

He kept expecting the word to stick in his throat, and it sort of scared him that it didn’t. He couldn’t help but wonder what Lorena would think, if she could somehow see this, if she felt betrayed, if she hated him.

Wyatt, he noted, had yet to address Flynn as his anything. “We’re on our honeymoon,” Wyatt said, sounding like it sort of terrified him to say it.

Greg shook Wyatt’s hand. “Congratulations! I have to say, really, you’re going to love it here. I’m having the time of my life.”

“Really?” Flynn asked, sensing an opportunity. “You been here long?”

“About a week and a half now,” Greg replied.

“Oh, so you must have some stories about this place,” Wyatt said, catching on to what Flynn was aiming at. Flynn grinned at him, and for once he didn’t have to hide how pleased he was, because they were pretending that Wyatt was his husband and he could—ironically—let that make him more truthful.

“Oh, do I,” Greg replied, laughing.

Flynn arched an eyebrow at Wyatt, who smirked back at him.

It was easy as pie to get Greg to start spilling the beans on the gossip around the place, chatting at the saloon over a few glasses of whiskey (provided by Jiya, who was sending Flynn oddly judgmental looks every time he touched Wyatt until he gave up trying to figure out what her weird eyebrow acrobatics were supposed to mean), including that on Whitney who was—according to Greg—a bit of a hellraiser.

“She was having an affair with one of the staff members,” Greg said over coffee. “She wouldn’t say which one, because he was married.”

“You’re kidding,” Wyatt said, leaning in.

Wyatt seemed to be going from wary around Greg to relaxed in a way that Flynn hadn’t really seen him before. Huh.

“Now, not that the rest of us haven’t had our moments, there’s this one ranch hand named Jack that…” Greg launched into a story about his own escapades, which was were hilarious, Flynn had to admit, but he was here for information about Whitney, not random gossip.

Wyatt, however, seemed to disagree. He kept asking Greg questions, none of which seemed to do with Whitney.

“So there are a lot of… uh… I thought it would just be, y’know, straight couples here,” Wyatt said. “And um. Y’know, guys trying to play cowboy.”

“Like you?” Flynn noted.

Wyatt turned and pointed a finger at him. “You, Mr. Walking Runway, have no room to judge. I saw you practicing your gun twirling in the mirror.”

“I wasn’t the one who was practically salivating over getting to come here,” Flynn replied, leaning in. Wyatt grinned at him, eyes soft, cheeks flushed, and Flynn had a large handful of stupid impulses he had to swallow. He glanced over at Greg, trying to remind himself that this was just a façade, and that they had an audience. “You can imagine whose idea it was to come here.”

Wyatt blinked, staring at Greg like he’d forgotten Greg existed. “His,” he said, deadpan, jerking his thumb at Flynn.

Greg cracked up. “You two are honestly adorable. You’ll have to let me introduce you to some of the other friends I’ve made here.”

“I’m not sure,” Flynn said. “If they’re like Whitney…”

“Are you implying I’d cheat!?” Wyatt sounded genuinely offended.

“I’m implying that the last time someone tried to flirt with you, you looked like you’d been dumped in a volcano.”

That someone had been a witness during a case, and Lucy had looked like she’d wanted to grab the nearest heavy object and smash it over the woman’s head. Wyatt had an unfortunate habit of attracting the attention of middle-aged white “wine mommies” who were bored with their admittedly disappointing husbands.

“Whitney was one of a kind that way,” Greg replied. “Honestly, I was a little worried they’d get caught, that she was getting in too deep, you know? It’s never good to get attached in that situation.”

Flynn personally thought it was rather best not to get yourself into that situation in the first place, but what did he know with his old-fashioned notions of ‘don’t cheat on your partner’.

“In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s why she left.”

“Really?” Wyatt said, elbowing Flynn because Wyatt was the least subtle person on the planet. Flynn elbowed him right back. Wyatt stepped on his foot under the table.

“Oh, yeah, she was out with him until about three a.m. I heard her come back to her room then and she was super upset. She wouldn’t tell me what had happened but she packed her things and just left, just like that.”

Finally, finally a good lead. Flynn squeezed Wyatt’s knee under the table and Wyatt nudged him softly with his shoulder. Now, they just had to figure out which staff member it was.

* * *

The man apparently had no enemies. He was a personal injury attorney but not one of the annoying ones who had advertisements everywhere saying to call him if you got into a car accident. He had a loving wife, a wife who burst into tears when Lucy and Rufus had to tell her that her husband was dead, and how.

“But we’d—we’d just booked a trip,” she kept saying. “We’d just bought the tickets. We were going to Kyoto. He’d always wanted to go. We’d just bought the tickets.”

Her fingers itched to pick up the phone, to call Flynn, even if she pretended everything was fine, even if it was just to hear his voice. She wanted to call Wyatt and have him talk in that soft soothing way he got, that way that Wyatt only seemed to really let himself be when one of them was hurting. She missed them, only just now realizing what a constant presence they had become in her life.

But she couldn’t call them. They were on a case, undercover, she couldn’t derail that. And—well, Wyatt used to have Flynn all to himself. Then she came along, with her stupid, ridiculous crush, and Wyatt had to share Flynn. This would be good for him, for both of them. She wasn’t going to intrude on that.

Even though she really, really wanted to.

Instead, she called Amy once they got back to the precinct. “Hey.” Her sister’s voice was warm. “I heard you had a hard day.”

Thank God Jess hadn’t mentioned any details. This was something Lucy wanted to talk to Amy about herself. “Yes, it—it was. Do you think we could—have a sister’s night? Watch—watch some fun movies. Eat more ice cream than we can handle.”

“Of course. I’ll even let you pick one of the movies.”

“Very funny.” Lucy smiled. “I’ll see you in a bit…” She paused.

Rufus was waving his arms at her, and pointing at a phone.

Lucy felt her blood go cold. “Amy, I’ll—I’ll call you right back.” On an impulse, she added, “I love you.”

“I love you,” Amy replied. She sounded more worried now than she had before.

Lucy hung up and went over to Rufus, who silently handed the phone to her. _Tracking, _he mouthed.

“Hello?” Lucy said.

“Ah, Lucy Preston. Did you get my present? I do hope that you like it.”

“It’s an unusual present.”

“For an unusual person,” the voice replied. It was definitely being altered in some way—Lucy could tell that it was a man, but not the exact cadence. She could pick Wyatt’s voice out of a crowd, or Flynn’s, or Rufus’s, but not this person. “You know, I was expecting a little more from someone who’s written such bestselling works. But perhaps you had a little help.”

Lucy bristled in spite of herself. “Are you suggesting I had a ghostwriter? Because I can promise you—”

The person laughed, and Lucy felt like wanting to strangle them while simultaneously being filled with terror—and hating herself for both feelings. “Oh, no, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. You’ll understand what I mean soon enough.”

“Then make me understand. Explain it to me.”

“That would be far too easy though, wouldn’t it? That’s not how this works. You have to follow the clues. I left you another present, actually. I do hope you can keep up.”

Lucy swallowed. “Where did you leave it?”

“I’m sure you’ll find it.”

The soft _click _of the line hanging up signaled the end of the call.

“The carousel in Central Park,” Denise said. She paused. “Maybe you shouldn’t…”

“I’m going,” Lucy insisted. “I’m going.” This person was calling _her_, leaving presents for _her_. It was her responsibility to see what—what this person had left her.

* * *

Wyatt and Flynn didn’t know which staff member Whitney had her affair with, so they split the task with Jiya, trying to cover as much ground as possible. Wyatt ended up in the hog-tying class with Greg, where he learned that using a lasso was a lot harder than he’d first suspected.

“You’re doing well!” Greg told him encouragingly.

“Easy for you to say,” Wyatt grumbled.

Most of the others were laughing, goofing off, realizing they weren’t actually going to succeed on lassoing a hog. There was a married couple, Tanya and Lauren, who were here for their anniversary, and a group of friends who always did something together every year. Everyone kept asking about Wyatt’s new husband, congratulating him, wanting details. It was… it was nice.

Okay, so it wasn’t nice to lie about being with Flynn when he wanted to be with Flynn for real. He was dreading having to share a bed with Flynn that night, wanting, so close to touching but not able to. It wasn’t nice to know that all of Flynn soft, warm looks, his smiles, his touches—so many more of them than usual, the hard edges gone—were an act.

But it was nice to have people look at him and say, “so, your husband,” with warmth and welcome. To see two women loving and laughing together, married for years. To see a group of friends, to see Greg, everyone joking about being gay or bi or whatever and it was okay because they were, too, and it was stupid warm sort of jokes like Greg saying, deadpan, “this is blatant homophobia” when the pig ran away and escaped his lasso.

Wyatt didn’t really want it to end.

“Okay, okay, story time,” Tanya said. “Wyatt. You need to tell us. Who proposed, and how.”

“Uh…” Fuck. He and Flynn hadn’t really gone over that. They’d just sort of—thought they could manage by keeping silent on specifics about romance, and rely on the fact that they lived together and spent just about every waking hour together for everything else.

“So, we’d been a bit—back and forth, sometimes,” Wyatt started. Fuck. He had no time to make up a story. He’d have to go with the only real story he had. “We’re both really headstrong people. And we’d been together for ages, so I sort of assumed that we’d always be together and that he knew that. But he didn’t, and so we had an argument, and I realized I needed to make an effort, a promise. Flynn really—he really cares about that.

“So there’s this—this tree on a hill in my hometown that we used to go up to when we were growing up. And I—I planned out this picnic and everything. I think he suspected because he’s sharp that way and I’m apparently more obvious than a herd of elephants, but… I went for it, right after dessert, and I was—I was so fucking nervous I opened the ring box upside down.”

Wyatt remembered Jess’s face when he’d done that. He could remember it without pain, now. Without regret. Maybe in another life he’d done things better after that. Maybe in another life, he and Jess were still in love, and still together, the way they had been then.

But that life wasn’t this one, and in this one, he had screwed it up afterwards. And he’d gotten better, and he’d fallen for Flynn, and Lucy. And God, he wished he had a real story to tell about them, and not have to recycle the one he had with Jess—because he didn’t want to recycle he person he’d been with Jess, even if the faults of that person weren’t because of anything on her part.

“And I was freaking out,” he said, giving a rueful little laugh. “I was so sure I’d ruined this whole thing, and I’m scrambling around in the grass like an idiot, and he just… takes my hands, and he tells me… he tells me yes.” Wyatt couldn’t ever imagine Flynn saying yes to him. “And then we, uh, we got a little distracted, and he said we’d search for the ring together. And we did.”

“That is the cutest fucking thing,” Greg announced.

Wyatt felt his face heating up and he ducked his head down. “Yeah, well. Flynn’s put up with me more than anyone, seen more of my shit than just about anyone. We’ve been through some real dark… dark stuff and come out the other side and he’s… he’s made me want to be a better person. So honestly—of course I’d want to commit to him, y’know? Who wouldn’t? He’s the best person I know.”

Everyone was smiling at him, but now there was a kind of knowing tinge to their expressions that made Wyatt suddenly freeze.

He turned around.

Flynn was standing there, hands on his hips. “It’s called hog tying, not storytelling,” he teased. “Having fun entertaining everyone?”

Wyatt was sure he’d never blushed so much in his damn life. He could barely look Flynn in the eye. “What was I gonna do, not tell them?”

“He’s adorable,” Lauren said.

Flynn chuckled, looking at her with an easy smile, but Wyatt saw the flicker in his eyes and oh shit, Flynn was uncomfortable. Wasn’t he?

Flynn grabbed Wyatt by the wrist and tugged him in, wrapping an arm around Wyatt’s waist easy as anything. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got to steal him away from you all.”

Wyatt thought he might pass out from panic as Flynn led him away, still keeping Wyatt against his side, the picture of a happy couple. “Jiya found out that the key Whitney had was to a shed,” Flynn whispered, his mouth right at Wyatt’s ear. “I found the guy who she had the affair with—turns out they never did anything more than make out, he felt like she was coming on weirdly strong, and he thinks she was just after him for some other reason—information or something.”

“So she stole the key to the shed from him somehow?”

“That’s what I’m thinking, c’mon, Jiya will meet us there.”

Wyatt nodded. “How—how much did you actually hear?”

Flynn paused. They were in the shadow of the shed, and nobody was around to look at them, but Flynn didn’t let go of Wyatt. He still had his arm around him. Was he trying to… comfort Wyatt?

“I heard all of it,” Flynn admitted. “I never knew that story about how you proposed.”

Wyatt shrugged. “Never really came up.” He was never going to flaunt his own proposal story in front of the man who’d lost his wife violently. Why would he? And for what reason would he tell the story anyway?

“I’m sorry,” Flynn said. “For my… my part in… in helping speed along your divorce.”

Wyatt pulled away from him, staring. “Is that how you feel about it?”

Flynn shrugged.

“Flynn, I was a fucking mess. Taking care of you was the only damn decent thing I ever did, and Jess knows it. Trust me, you didn’t do anything. I destroyed my marriage. Nobody else. I’m just lucky I got to save the friendship and I’m still not even sure how I did that.”

“By doing exactly what Jess said,” Flynn said.

…fair.

“You should’ve heard yourself,” Flynn added. “Talking about doing it. About what a good person I was and how lucky you were. And I knew you were talking about Jess. You were all each other had, I’ve heard the both of you say that… I can’t even count how many times. And I thought—maybe I was mistaken. Maybe he’s still a bit in love with her, and I helped to end that with all of my… with my breakdown.”

Wyatt almost blurted it out. Almost burst out with everything. He wanted Flynn to—to understand, fuck, why did Flynn have to take every opportunity to see himself as the villain? He felt—he felt happy, all right, fucking happy to be out, it felt _good_, and he’d thought it would just feel like a different kind of shit but it didn’t. And he wanted Flynn to stop thinking Wyatt was talking about Jess because he hadn’t been. He’d been thinking of Flynn when he’d said all of that last part, and he was thinking about Flynn now. He hadn’t wanted Jess in years.

It was a reckless, stupid impulse, and it would ruin everything, but for a moment it was so powerful that Wyatt nearly sank to his knees with the force of it. He just wanted it all out, the full truth, he wanted Flynn to know his worth and he wanted to stop hiding, he—

“Um, are you two going to actually help me with this investigation?” Jiya asked. “Or are you going to keep gawking at each other like a pair of chickens?”

Wyatt grit his teeth. “We’re coming, Jiya.”

“Not fast enough, you aren’t,” Jiya muttered, ducking back inside the shed. “First time a woman’s ever said that about a man,” she added.

Wyatt wanted to shoot himself in the face. Not in a lethal kind of way, more in a ‘please stop my existence for a few hours so I can blissfully pretend none of this happened’ kind of way.

Flynn gave him a small, tight smile, completely different from the ones that he’d been sharing with Wyatt all day, the warm, slow, wide ones that Wyatt wanted to feel against his lips. “Shall we?”

Wyatt followed him into the shed and cursed his entire three decades of life choices.

* * *

Lucy felt like she was wearing a hole in the floor of the precinct, but if Denise or anyone else was getting tired of her, they were being polite enough not to say anything. She’d had about ten cups of coffee, gone to the bathroom so many times everyone probably thought she had a bladder issue, and had rearranged Wyatt’s desk (she hadn’t dared touch Flynn’s, he actually had a system, Wyatt’s was pure messy chaos).

“Lucy?”

She turned to see Jess walking up to her, looking gentle. Never a good sign. Lucy had learned quickly that when Jess was gentle with you, it was because she had bad news. If she was being her usual abrasive, sassy self, you had nothing to worry about.

“The medical examiner substituting for Jess found something… worrisome about the bullets on the bodies.”

“Worrisome? How?” God, what could possibly be worse?

Jess handed Lucy some pictures. “You might want to sit down.”

Lucy took her advice, sitting down in Wyatt’s desk chair, and took the pictures from Jess. They showed two sets of bullets, four each, with… with a letter written on the back of each of them.

The first four spelled L-U-C-Y.

A chill raced up Lucy’s spine and she looked at the next set of bullets.

W-I-L-L.

“Lucy will… Lucy will what?” she asked, aware that her voice cracked.

“I don’t know, but since it’s not complete, I think we can guess that…”

“There’ll be another victim,” Lucy concluded.

Jess nodded.

Their second victim was a young woman in her twenties, a dog walker. She had been found sitting on the carousel, the whole contraption playing, the music eerie with no one there and with the lights all dark. The gun of her killer had been pressed so hard into the left side of her back that there had been bruising.

The look on her face had been one of such fear.

“This isn’t your fault,” Jess said quietly.

“How is this not my fault?” Lucy demanded. “I thought it was bad enough when—when someone was just copycatting my work as a cover up but this—this person is doing this for _me_. They called it a present. A present!” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t… if I’d done something…”

“If you hadn’t written murder mysteries then they would just find another excuse to kill,” Jess said. “That’s how these people work.”

“But why me?” Lucy whispered.

Jess sighed. “I wish I knew.” She cleared her throat. “But there’s also good news? They found a print on the girl’s wallet. We’re running it now, seeing if we can get match. And… you have a visitor. A good one.”

Lucy looked up, and saw Amy walking into the precinct, two cups of ice cream in hand.

“I’ll let you two go to the break room,” Jess said, patting Lucy on the shoulder.

Good. Lucy really didn’t want the entire precinct to see her cry into her ice cream.

* * *

Jiya frowned, looking around at the supplies stacked up in the shed. What could Whitney have possibly wanted in here?

She tried to think back to what she’d found during the autopsy. Whitney was in good health, she had a mole on her left knee, she’d had traces of butcher paper underneath her fingernails…

Jiya snapped her fingers. Butcher paper!

“I know what she was after!” Jiya announced as Wyatt and Flynn entered. They were standing unusually close—well, they always stood close, the two of them and Lucy, with next to no space between them, but now it was even worse.

She ignored the idiots and walked over to the boxes stacked against the far end of the shed wall, opening up one to reveal, as she’d suspected, rolls of dynamite. Wrapped in red butcher paper.

“What the hell would Whitney need dynamite for?” Wyatt asked.

“Rufus and Lucy said that she was looking into the local historical society,” Flynn said. “And that she was excited over the mistranslation of a Yavapai word. That it could mean stream or river. Maybe she was going out to blow open a local stream?”

Jiya pulled out her phone. “Let me call Rufus.” It was odd that she hadn’t gotten an update or even an unofficial, non-case-related text from him in a while.

It took a few minutes, but Rufus answered. “Hey, babe, sorry I’ve been distracted, we—”

“It’s okay, honestly, I know you guys have other cases. Listen, were you and Lucy able to dig up more on Whitney’s research?”

There was a long pause, long enough that Jiya could feel the weight of it and started to worry. “Are you with the boys right now?” Rufus asked at last.

“Yeah, of course I am.”

Rufus sighed. “Um, okay. I’m going to give you the information on Whitney, and then I need you to hang up and then call me back when you’re alone. This… this is something you should tell them in person but… we gotta brainstorm how to do it.”

“Okay,” Jiya said, instead of asking _why, what’s wrong, _because that would put both Flynn and Wyatt on alert immediately. She put Rufus on speaker. “What do you know about Whitney?”

“We found a letter in her luggage, dated 1992. It’s from Diamondback Ranch, from this guy named Clyde, and it’s about how he and these two other people named Slim and Dutch were close to finding the secret treasure of the Peacock Brothers.”

“Peacock Brothers?” Jiya knew those names. “Those are characters here at the ranch, you can join with the bounty hunters to go after them, it’s one of the adventures for visitors here.”

“Yeah, well they were actual outlaws back in the day. They supposedly hid their treasure of stolen gold from the U.S. Treasury around here, near a river.”

“A river,” Flynn said, “or a stream. That was why Whitney was excited, she realized that Clyde had mistranslated the Yavapai word on where the treasure was.”

“Exactly,” Rufus replied. “Diamondback was an actual ranch before it was a resort, Clyde and his two pals were seasonal workers there. Clyde said they were close but I looked him up, and he disappeared soon after this letter was sent.”

“So we need to find Slim and Dutch,” Wyatt said. “His partners.”

“Well, we found Slim,” Rufus said. “Right away, in fact.”

“Oh?”

“Slim was Whitney’s mother.”

Jiya frowned. “Was this letter… romantic, in nature?”

“A bit.”

“Oh my God,” Jiya blurted out. “Whitney didn’t just come here for treasure, she came here to find her father. What happened to him.”

“Seems like it. Looking at the maps of the area, and the other Yavapai instructions on the treasure, the stream that Whitney was looking for…”

Jiya glanced at the dynamite. “…was dammed up so she needed to blow a hole in it to get at the treasure.”

“Yes!” She could hear the grin in Rufus’s voice.

“Is that how we sound with Lucy?” Wyatt whispered to Flynn, who was rolling his eyes fondly and oh, those two were so close to getting the point.

“My bet is that the third partner, Dutch, killed Clyde. Slim—sorry, Virginia, Whitney’s mother—never saw any of the gold and never heard from Clyde again. We spoke with Virginia’s best friend who she’d been living with at the time of her pregnancy, apparently that was when Virginia left the ranch and came back to New York, and her friend told us that Virginia was shocked and cut up that Clyde never came through. She said she wouldn’t have expected it of him.”

“So Virginia thought that Clyde and Dutch just cut and ran with the money.”

“Yeah, but Whitney probably didn’t think so. Why else would she come here, looking for the gold? Unless she thought something else happened? There are easier ways of finding out if someone died, she could do that research in New York. If she came down here it was for the gold.”

“Jiya, I could kiss you,” Rufus announced.

Jiya could feel her face heating up and stubbornly ignored Wyatt and Flynn, who were smirking at her. “Why don’t we have Wyatt and Flynn head out to see what Whitney found? I think that whatever happened to her, it was out there, or because of whatever she found out there.”

“Good idea,” Rufus said.

Wyatt looked like he was physically restraining himself from jumping up and down. “I totally agree, definitely, she definitely was murdered out there or something.”

“You just want to go after the gold,” Flynn accused.

“Of course I want to go after the gold!” Wyatt replied. “It’s gold!”

“I think Wyatt might want to go after the gold, guys,” Jiya said.

“Great.” Rufus sounded relieved. “Take care of yourselves out there. I’ll let you know if we get any other information—we’re trying to track down who Dutch really was, all we have is his nickname but Victoria’s friend said she’d try and see what she could dig up as well. We’ll keep in touch.” He paused. “Um, take me off speaker?”

Jiya took him off speaker. “I love you,” Rufus told her.

She grinned, shameless and wide. “I love you too.”

Flynn winked at her.

Jiya hung up the phone, and the boys got ready to head out. It was only once they were gone that she called Rufus back.

“Hey, my love.” Knowing that no others were nearby, his voice was softer, warmer, and Jiya had to find a place to sit down because she was hit all over again with missing him. “Listen. Things… things aren’t going so well back here.”

“Are you okay? Are your mom and Kevin okay?”

“They’re fine, they’re great, Kevin’s basketball team is having a great season. But… Jiya. We’ve got—you need to find a way to say it, you know how to talk to Flynn. And he knows how to talk to Wyatt. But. It’s Lucy. She’s—”

_She’s dead. She’s hurt. Keynes is back. Amy’s hurt. _A thousand terrible possibilities went through Jiya’s mind at lightning speed.

Rufus blew out a breath. “We’ve got a serial killer on the loose. He claims he’s a fan of Lucy’s. And he’s—he’s going after her. He’s killed two people already, Jiya, and we’ve got no fucking clue who he is.”

…shit.

* * *

Flynn hummed as he petted the horses they’d chosen. “Aren’t you a beautiful girl,” he said, keeping his voice low and soothing. “Yes, you are. Look at your lovely hair. Someone takes good care of you, don’t they?”

“You’re a horse guy?” Wyatt asked, walking up.

Flynn turned, offering the reins of one of the horses to Wyatt. “Always. I’ve loved them since I was a kid. I used to tell my mom I wanted to be a medieval knight so I could be paid just to ride around on horses swinging a sword.”

He went back to petting the horses, talking to them. He could feel Wyatt’s eyes on him as he saddled the horses up, like Wyatt was incapable of looking anywhere else. “What?” he asked at last, self-conscious.

Wyatt looked a bit sunburnt, his face redder than usual. There was an odd look on his face, like he was struggling not to smile. Was he finding this funny for some reason? “Nothing, nothing. Just. You look happy.”

“…I am happy.”

“Yeah, but. You haven’t been.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Wyatt rolled his eyes and swung up into the saddle of his horse. “C’mon, Flynn. Ever since Keynes got away you’ve been—you’ve been the opposite of yourself. All withdrawn. I’ve never known you to be this quiet.”

Flynn swung up into the saddle as well. “He got away, Wyatt. You want me to be pleased about that? The whole time, he was a step ahead of me. I should’ve… I let him break into our house, plant evidence, break into our computer. He murdered an innocent woman just to mess with my head. He nearly killed you and Lucy.”

“And you, Flynn, don’t fucking forget that.”

“He nearly succeeded on all of it. And in the end he still got to escape and now he’s off hurting people.”

“And none of it’s your fault,” Wyatt said. They gently clicked the reins, digging in their heels, and started down the trail. “He fixated on you, how the fuck is that your fault? If it was me or, or Lucy, would you let us beat ourselves up like this?”

“He was my bag, all those years ago. Ever since then…” Flynn shook his head. “Look, I know it’s not exactly… logical. But I want to—to take him down. I can’t rest fully knowing he’s out there. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone else.”

Wyatt sighed. “I can’t ask you to drop that weight if you’ve decided to carry it. But you don’t have to shoulder it alone. I’m your partner. So’s Lucy. And I know she’d say the same if she were here. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Flynn wanted to reach out and stop their horses. He wanted to tug Wyatt to him and make good on all the touches and looks he’d been giving Wyatt as a part of their cover. He wanted to steal the air right out of Wyatt’s mouth.

Instead he cleared his throat and looked away. “I don’t suppose I have a choice in the matter.”

“Nope!” Wyatt said cheerfully. “You don’t.” He looked out across the desert. “I’m sorry about—about Denise too, by the way.”

That took Flynn by surprise. “What do you mean?”

“She arrested you, Flynn! She nearly got you killed!” The anger and outrage in Wyatt’s voice was booming.

Flynn shook his head. “Wyatt, she’s a cop. And she’s a gay, woman, non-white cop at that. Denise knows better than anyone that we have to be careful in how we use our power. Cops abuse it constantly. She had to do things by the book—if she didn’t and it came to light then how would it look? What if that had only ended up helping Keynes in his plans? And once she started breaking the rules for one thing, one person, who else would she break them for?”

Wyatt shook his head. “She could’ve been a bit fucking nicer about it.”

“She was trying to remain impartial. She’s the captain, it’s not easy.”

“Yeah, well.” Wyatt shrugged. “Not sure I can forgive her just yet.”

Flynn couldn’t say anything in response. After all, if Wyatt or Lucy had been the ones in that situation… he wouldn’t forgive Denise either, as illogical as it was.

They rode all day but couldn’t reach the location of the supposed treasure by the time that night fell, so they camped out. Wyatt looked really excited about it until he heard a noise that sounded like “a fucking coyote or something, Flynn, I don’t know” and then he was shoving at Flynn to move over and scooting his sleeping bag right up against Flynn’s like Flynn could really protect him from a damn cougar or pack of coyotes just by sheer proximity.

“You can see so many stars out here,” Flynn noted. “Reminds me of home.” He’d grown up in a small, inland town in Croatia, away from the cities. It was one of the things he didn’t like about New York, the lack of stars thanks to light pollution.

“Same here,” Wyatt replied. “There was a hill, the hill I talked about in… in the story, with Jess, we would go up there and stargaze.”

_I’m glad she doesn’t have you, _Flynn thought selfishly. _I’m glad I get to have you this way, even if it’s not the way I really want you._

“Y’know, I used to dream all that time about being a cowboy,” Wyatt said. “Reminded me of my Gramps. He had the entire Louis L’Amour collection and he’d read me the Sackett stories when I was little.”

“You know L’Amour was from Eastern Europe, right?” Flynn said. “He was an immigrant.”

Wyatt turned his head to look at him. “No shit, really?”

Flynn tried, but he couldn’t hold in his laughter and he doubled over, wheezing. “He was from North Dakota.”

“Oh my God you fucking jackass.”

“The look on your face!”

“I can’t believe I fucking believed you for two seconds, you are the worst—”

Flynn wiped at his eyes, still laughing, his body shaking with it. It wasn’t even that funny of a joke, but it had been so long since he’d really laughed, with everything that had happened… it was like a dam breaking, bursting open, like now that his body had permission it couldn’t stop.

Wyatt watched him with a grin on his face, his eyes sparkling in the light from the dying fire at their feet, and Flynn didn’t know how say it, didn’t have the words yet, but he wanted Wyatt to know—he was going to be okay. Keynes was a long shadow but shadows were just formless imitations. They weren’t the light. He was going to be okay.

All of them were.

* * *

Lucy didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep at Flynn’s desk until she woke up to Jess shaking her shoulder. “We’ve got a match on the fingerprints,” she said, her face grim. “Guy with priors who got out of prison a month ago. Denise is leading the team. You want to come?”

She dragged herself up into a sitting position, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.”

Jess didn’t say anything about how Lucy probably should go home and get some decent sleep. Instead she just passed her a fresh cup of coffee. “I know it’s not as good as Flynn’s,” she joked. “But it’s caffeine.”

Their hands folded in over one another as Jess handed her the cup, and Lucy squeezed gently, a thank you she couldn’t, somehow, find a way to voice.

The drive to the suspect’s apartment was silent except for Denise giving instructions to the SWAT team. Even Rufus looked grim.

_Let me know when you’re back safe at the precinct, _Amy texted her.

_I will._

They pulled up in the alley in a dingy neighborhood, the sort of place Lucy would’ve thought a bit stereotypical for a serial killer to live.

“His manager said he left work an hour ago,” Denise said. “He should be here any minute.”

He was. As Denise cuffed him, reading him his rights, Lucy couldn’t help but feel that he looked a bit like a stereotypical serial killer, too. The kind of degenerate, woman-hating white man who hadn’t come to terms with the idea of personal hygiene and probably looked up to Ted Bundy.

Denise wasn’t sure about letting her into the interrogation room, but Lucy wanted this man to know she was looking him in the eye. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was hiding, or seeing her afraid.

_You can’t let anyone see you flinch, Lucy, _Mom would always say. _You’re still in a man’s world. They try to cut you, you cut harder and faster. Keep your knife sharper than theirs. Don’t ever let them see you flinch._

Despite her insistence on traditional femininity, much to Amy’s chagrin, Carol Preston had not believed that softness won the day.

Right now, Lucy believed her.

“He said you’d come,” the man said, staring at her. “You’re beautiful, you know. He said you were. Said you looked like an angel. What’s an angel doing writing books like yours, Miss Preston? Full of all that death?” He clucked his tongue. “Very naughty.”

“Who’s he?” Denise demanded, her palms flat on the table. Lucy sometimes disagreed with Denise’s choices but right now, Lucy had never been more grateful for her. It felt like being in the room with a lioness, but the lioness was on her side.

“The man I sold my finger to,” their suspect replied, and then he began to undo the bandage around his pinkie finger.

There was nothing left but a stump.

“For ten grand he took my finger. Bandaged it up himself.” He held the wrappings out to Lucy.

She took them carefully, caught a whiff of… was that embalming fluid?

“What do the numbers on here mean?” she asked.

Their suspect shrugged. “He said that was for you to figure out.”

* * *

“This is it!” Wyatt said, getting off his horse and hurrying down the embankment towards the newly-blasted mine entrance. “Holy shit, Flynn, we’re going to find gold, we’re going to be famous—”

“You’re immortalized in a fictional series about two time-traveling detectives, don’t you think that’s famous enough?” Flynn asked, following Wyatt inside.

Most of the mine shaft was caved in from what looked like a weakening of the walls through water damage—from the infamous stream, no doubt. Before it had been dammed up. But there was a small chamber to the side that held some trunks.

Wyatt knelt down in front of one. “Get a picture of me.”

“No way am I getting a damn picture of you, Wyatt.”

Wyatt flipped open the lid of the biggest trunk—and yelled in surprise as his find yielded not gold, but a skeletal body.

Flynn leaned in, examining the body. If he had to take a wild guess, he’d say they’d just found out what happened to Clyde. “Now I wish I had taken a picture, your face was priceless.”

Wyatt flipped him off.

* * *

Lucy watched over Rufus’s shoulder as he ran the set of numbers from the bandage through the computer. “It doesn’t seem to be matching any algorithms or codes that the computer has stored,” he said.

“I’m not sure it would be something complicated like that,” Jess replied. “This message is for Lucy to solve. So it would have to be something that she would know, a code that she could break.”

“I used a lot of old codes from both World Wars in my Kate Drummond series,” Lucy noted. “But this doesn’t correspond to any of them.”

She felt constantly sick at a low level, like the very beginning of getting a cold, that bit where you weren’t quite sure if it was a stomach bug or if you just felt crappy for the day. _Are you really letting this beat you? _She could hear her mother’s voice in her ear. _Are you going to let this person get the best of you?_

Lucy searched through the letters again. “He wrote them in two columns. The ones on the right are all lower than three hundred. The ones on the left tend to be higher. There’s got to be a reason for the pattern.”

Think, Lucy, think. Red marks on her pages. Notes in the margins. Better pacing, wittier hooks, original metaphors, no clichés, smarter plot twists. Harder, Lucy, think harder, think smarter, Lucy, you’re the best, Lucy, _I raised you to be the best—_

“Type set!” she blurted out.

Rufus and Jess looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“When we type set a manuscript,” she explained, “we have three hundred words a page so that they all look uniform. The first number, the one on the left, is a page, and the second number is the word on the page, that’s why they don’t go over three hundred on the right.”

“But a page from what?” Rufus asked.

“The third Kate Drummond book,” Lucy said. “It’s about the mob in New York. Kate goes to Grand Central station, and then to the carousel.”

“Then let’s get a copy of your book,” Jess said grimly.

“Already got a digital copy,” Rufus announced, typing away rapidly on the computer. “And setting the computer to find the corresponding words…”

It took a few minutes, but the words began to appear on the screen in front of them as the computer picked them out.

_I_

_Will_

_Kill_

_Someone_

_Before_

_Midnight_

_Tonight_

_Unless_

_You_

_Stop_

_Me_

“He’s drawing us further into the web now,” Jess whispered. “No phone calls this time. More elaborate clues, breadcrumbs…”

Rufus silently passed Lucy a glass of water. She downed it in one gulp. “I smelled embalming fluid on the bandages,” she said. “Can that get us anything?”

“We can certainly try,” Rufus said, typing away on his computer.

Jess reached over, squeezing Lucy’s shoulder.

She couldn’t even feel it.

* * *

Flynn noted Jiya’s grim face as they rode up. “Whoa, we haven’t even told you our news yet,” he said, slowing down his horse and petting her fondly as he swung out of the saddle.

“We found a dead body,” Wyatt said. “We’re pretty sure it’s Clyde’s.”

“Great.” Jiya’s voice was flat. “Rufus found out who Dutch is, or rather Virginia’s old friend found out. It’s Dagmar, the benefactor, Whitney’s mentor. Guy swears he didn’t do it, though. That there was another partner who did it and that Dagmar split the gold with the guy fifty-fifty.”

“With whom?” Wyatt asked.

“Any reason why you look so damn glum about it?” Flynn added.

“You two are gonna want to come into the saloon and get a drink to go with this,” Jiya said, suiting the action to the word by heading inside.

Flynn exchanged a look with Wyatt, who shrugged and followed Jiya inside.

“Hey, Wyatt, mind grabbing Grady for me?” Jiya asked. Grady was the owner and creator of the resort. “I’m just gonna set up with Flynn here.”

“Yeah, sure thing.” Wyatt headed out to find the guy while Flynn took a seat at the bar.

“You wanted Wyatt gone,” he said. “Why.”

“Because you’ll want to tell him this yourself.” Jiya poured him a finger of whiskey and passed it to him, waiting until Flynn had drunk it before continuing. “Lucy has a fan. A dangerous one. He’s been killing people to get her attention and we’ve reason to suspect that he’ll be after her once he’s all through.”

Flynn’s throat and stomach burned, and it wasn’t from the alcohol.

“Rufus says that Lucy’s been handling it about as well as he can, but the bastard’s one step ahead of them the whole time, playing a sick game. They’ve all been scrambling to keep their finger to the pulse on this one, they haven’t really had a chance to call, and Denise wasn’t sure about distracting you from your case but…” Jiya poured another finger of whiskey and set it aside. Flynn knew it was for Wyatt. “You need to know. Now that things are wrapping up.”

“We don’t know who the other partner was, the man who murdered Clyde and took the other half of the gold.”

“Yes, we do, Dagmar gave him up.” Jiya looked at him like he was crazy. “Why do you think I just sent Wyatt to get him?”

* * *

Wyatt found Grady, the Diamondback owner, relaxing on the front porch of the mail office. “Grady, you got a second? Flynn and I were hoping to grab a farewell drink with you at the saloon.”

They’d have to awkwardly explain to Grady that they were actually undercover police officers, and ask him to call the Sheriff to come down and inspect Clyde’s remains, but oh well.

Grady got to his feet. “Leaving already? I heard you two were a smash hit.”

Yeah, surprisingly. Wyatt hadn’t realized cowboys were so damn gay. Maybe he needed to brush up on his history more. “Well, yeah, but y’know. Duty calls.”

“Duty?”

“Flynn and I are, uh, police officers. Actually that’s why we’re here?” Might as well just tell him. “We’re investigating a murder, two murders it turns out. A young woman who was staying here a few days ago named…”

“Whitney,” Grady said, finishing the sentence for him.

Wyatt stared at him. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

Grady put his hand on his hip, where his gun was. “Ah, y’know, I really would hate to do this to you.”

_They have real guns here_, Jiya had told him. _This is an open carry state._

Wyatt had his own gun in his hip holster, but he wasn’t used to shooting from the hip or even pulling his gun out of a hip holster to shoot normally. When he needed his gun he already had it out.

“You can’t kill me and get away with it,” he pointed out.

Grady shrugged. “I’ll be in Mexico faster’n you can blink, boy.”

Wyatt grabbed his holster. “All right, old man, you want an OK Corral, High Noon piece of bullshit? We can—”

Grady whipped his gun out, and a shot rang out. Wyatt flinched, certain he’d been hit—only to feel nothing. Grady, however, howled in pain, blood spurting out of his fingers.

Wyatt whirled around to find Flynn standing there. Wyatt gaped. Flynn smirked and held up his gun. “You’re welcome.”

Behind Flynn, Jiya was rolling her eyes.

* * *

The Sheriff, despite his trepidations about Whitney’s death being a murder, was happy to hear that the matter had been cleaned up and took Grady into custody without much questioning.

“I reckon we cleaned up this town,” Wyatt said, grinning.

“…I reckon we did,” Flynn replied, in an absolutely awful Western accent.

Wyatt made a face. “Never. Try to sound Texan. Ever again.”

Flynn winked at him. Then he turned serious. “Listen, Wyatt…”

“Wyatt! Flynn!”

Greg hurried up, a little out of breath. “We heard you guys were leaving?” He hugged them both. “We’re going to miss you, you have to come say goodbye before you go!”

“Sure,” Flynn said, sounding that fake kind of happy like he got whenever Lucy’s agent or editor or whoever suggested something like having Flynn and Wyatt do an interview for a magazine. Flynn was not a people person and that was never going to change. “We’ll be right over.”

Greg grinned at them and hurried off to tell the others.

Wyatt took a deep breath.

He couldn’t tell Flynn how he’d realized he was bi. He couldn’t admit to his feelings for Flynn.

But he liked being out. He liked being himself. It wasn’t like he spent all day thinking about it or talking about it. But just getting to—to be able to say it if he wanted, to just have people knowing, and accepting it… it was like breathing properly. And letting Lucy know—or rather confirming for her—that he was in love with Flynn was one thing. But that was a single person. That didn’t mean—Flynn might be an exception.

He wasn’t, though. Flynn was the discovery, but he was part of a rule. A rule that Wyatt had been denying and hiding from all his life, until Flynn had made it impossible. Saying he was in love with one person and saying he was bi were different and if he couldn’t say the former then—then he wanted his best friend to know the latter.

“Hey, Garcia?”

Flynn looked over at him. “Yeah?”

Wyatt inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. “I’m… I like… I’m bi.”

Flynn looked at him, blinked slowly, and then said, “What the fuck?”

“Not really the answer I was hoping for, Flynn!” Wyatt snapped, his face heating up.

“No, sorry, I—” Flynn swallowed, waved his hand, and looked for a solid ten seconds like he’d forgotten English. “I just never thought you—I’m bi, Wyatt.”

Wyatt had to sit down, which he did, promptly.

Flynn ran a hand through his hair. “My one serious relationship before Lorena was… my childhood best friend, a man, Matej. We—sort of danced around what we were, for years. It—that was the hardest thing about when he died. That we’d wasted all that time and most of it was my idiocy because I’d been—I’d had no idea that he was in love with me, for a long time, and—anyway.” Flynn gave a small smile. “I’m making this about me.”

“No shit, I think we should make it about you, why the fuck did you never tell me?” Wyatt felt his voice going up a full octave.

“I didn’t—it never came up!” Flynn waved his hands in the air again. “How was I ever supposed to bring up to the brother of my wife that, oh, yes, before I married your sister I had a years-long love affair with someone else? Oh, and by the way, he was a man?”

“Everyone has sexual history!”

“Not you! You had Jess, she was your one and done!”

“And look at how well that turned out!” Wyatt scrubbed at his face. “Fuck, Flynn, I was terrified you’d—telling you, telling anyone—”

“_Sranje_.” Flynn sat down next to him. “Wyatt, has anyone known? At all?”

Wyatt shook his head. “I think… I think Jess suspects. I—I want to tell Lucy, I—sort of, she sort of guessed, when we were with the, y’know, tiger and all that but I want to tell her properly. But you’re the first. I wanted you to—to be the first.”

“I’m honored,” Flynn said, gravely. “Truly, Wyatt. I know—this couldn’t be easy. Any of it. I was… my issues, aren’t so much about… the gender of the person, or labels, it’s more… whatever the gender, it’s getting my head out of my ass. Lorena—did I ever tell you she was waiting six months before she gave up and just asked me out herself?”

Wyatt nodded. “I loved that story,” he confessed. “First of all because I love hearing about you being an idiot but second you—she—I like that she was so—so take charge, I liked knowing more about her. I like to know—all I can, about her.”

Flynn rested a hand on his shoulder. “She would’ve loved you. So much, Wyatt.”

_And yet I’m glad she’s not here. I’m glad she doesn’t have to go through this. I’m glad I don’t have to fall in love with my sister’s husband right in front of her._

“I feared you’d—look at me differently.”

Flynn squeezed Wyatt’s shoulder, then let go. “No. Even if I was straight. No, Wyatt. You’re still you. How could anyone look at you differently, when they’re seeing the same person they always have?”

He slowly released a breath. “You… how did you know? How did—you and Matej—”

Flynn held out the car keys. “It’s a long drive back to the airport.” He stood up. “And I’m driving.”

“What!?” Wyatt stood as well. “Fuck that, Flynn, get—give me the damn—I drive faster you jackass—”

Flynn just laughed in response, keys jingling in his hand.

* * *

Jiya hugged Rufus for a long, long time.

“I didn’t realize I’d miss you so much,” she murmured. “Holy crap. That felt like three years.”

Rufus hugged her just as tightly. “No offense to the other M.E. but he isn’t as good as you are.” He kissed her temple. “Also that was mean of you to send me those pictures of you in the saloon outfit.”

“You say that like I didn’t bring the outfit home.” Jiya pulled back and kissed him properly.

“How are Flynn and Wyatt taking the news about Lucy?”

Jiya sighed. “Wyatt did a lot of yelling. Flynn’s too angry to yell, I think. I wasn’t there when Flynn told Wyatt but I could hear them from a distance. I hated telling them, they were—I think they were close to something, there. They were so happy getting to act like a couple, you should’ve seen them, Rufus. They just kept smiling at each other like they couldn’t help it.”

“I get the feeling,” Rufus replied, smiling at her.

Jiya blushed and laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Guilty as charged.”

She hugged him again, because she could. “Next time I go undercover I’m taking you with me.”

Rufus laughed, his face pressed to her hair. “Deal.”

* * *

Lucy stared at the files in front of her. Embalming fluid. Did their guy work at a mortuary? No, they’d checked and so far, no matches, no hits. What else used embalming fluid?

It was about to be past midnight. It was about to be past midnight, and she had no idea who their killer was, and someone was going to die, and it was going to be her fault, and…

She stood up and tilted her head from side to side, trying to work out the kinks. Okay, maybe if she looked at it from a different angle. Got a new perspective, literally.

Lucy felt someone come up behind her and she whirled around, her self-defense instincts on hyper alert thanks to her fucking nerves and all the classes, and she brought her arm down ready to punch the person—only to have her blow blocked.

By Wyatt.

“Lucy, whoa, it’s me, it’s okay.”

Lucy stared at him for a moment, her exhaustion-addled brain struggling to comprehend that he was actually there, and then she was yanking him into a hug.

“Fuck, if this is what you get up to while we’re gone we’re not going undercover without you again.”

Lucy laughed even as tears sprang out of her eyes and she held onto him tightly. “I missed you.” She pulled back and noticed his tan. “You look like you had a good time.”

“Eh, would’ve been better if you were there.”

“Lucy?”

She turned, following the voice, grabbing onto Flynn before she even saw his face. “Fuck,” she blurted out, burying her face in his chest as she felt his arms come around her.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Flynn softly stroked her hair.

“It’s not,” Lucy replied. “He said he’d kill someone by midnight unless I stopped him and it’s midnight now and I’ve got no idea and it’s my fault, it’s my _fault_—”

The phone rang.

Lucy froze.

Flynn held her so tightly she thought their bones might fuse together. Then he pulled away and picked up the phone. “Detective Garcia Flynn.” His voice was fire.

A look of rage crossed Flynn’s face, and then he slowly handed the phone to Lucy, like someone was forcing him to do it at gunpoint. “I’ll trace the call.”

Lucy took the phone. “Hello?”

“You were supposed to stop me. I wanted you to stop me.” The voice sounded angry.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Where are you?”

“Will you come alone?”

Wyatt waved his hands wildly to signal _No. _Lucy ignored him. “Yes. Tell me where you are. I can help you, but I need you to trust me.”

“I’ll tell you something. A question. How does it feel to know that you’ve failed?”

“We’ve got him,” Flynn whispered, “he’s at a parking garage.”

Lucy went to reply to the voice, but the line clicked and went dead.

Before she even knew what she was doing, she threw the phone viciously against the wall. The entire cradle and base went with it, sending Flynn’s pens and extra supplies from the desk all over the floor as the phone smashed into the wall, pieces of plastic flying everywhere.

Denise emerged from her office. “What in the hell was that?”

Wyatt guided Lucy to sit down, his hands on her shoulders. His hands were heavy. She needed that.

“Lucy got another call,” Flynn said. “We have a third victim.”

* * *

Flynn had never spoken to this man before, but he wanted to kill him.

The look on Lucy’s face as she’d taken the phone call, the way she’d frozen in his arms when she’d heard the phone ring, the way she’d smashed the phone against the wall with desperate, white-knuckled fear and self-loathing—Flynn knew all of that rage well. He had been feeling it after Keynes and God he never, ever wanted Lucy to feel that way, never wished something like that on her, knew she deserved better than that, fuck—

At the parking garage, there was no body. Just a bloodstain that led to where a parked car had once sat.

“He’s changing his M.O.,” Denise noted. “He killed before in a public place with lots of foot traffic, left the bodies—he has a flair the dramatic. He wants attention. We’re going to see this body again, and in a way that will draw that attention to him.”

She turned to Wyatt. “Get Lucy home.” Then she looked at Flynn. “I want you and Wyatt with her tonight. Keep an eye on her place in case he tries anything.”

“I thought you would say we’re too close to it,” Flynn replied.

“She doesn’t just need a detail watching her,” Denise said. “She needs people who care. People who understand. Nobody understands better than you do.”

Flynn looked at her, looked at her ramrod straight back, the circles under her eyes. “I hope you know that I know what you do for us.”

Denise blinked and looked away. “I do what any captain should do for her people, Garcia. I try to balance law with compassion. I don’t always succeed.”

“But you try. Go home, Christopher. Go hug your wife and kids.”

“Flynn?” Wyatt called, his arm around Lucy as they stood by the squad car, Lucy with her pale face and dangerously sparkling eyes.

“Go home,” Denise echoed back at him.

He went to join Lucy and Wyatt.

* * *

Amy carefully watched her sister as Lucy sat down on the couch, ice cream in hand—no wine or other alcohol—and Wyatt fetched her a glass of water. Flynn was checking the windows everywhere, and Amy had never been more grateful for the pair of guard dogs that her sister had basically adopted.

“How’re you doing?” she asked, sitting down. She knew it was a stupid question, but what the hell else was she supposed to ask? What was she supposed to say or do to fix this? Lucy had been cut up forever about her first case, the one the burglars had committed that imitated her one book, and this was so much worse than that.

Who was this person? What did they want? Yes, they were insane, sure, okay, fine. But even insane people had an internal logical to their process. _Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t._

You couldn’t hang out around Mason for any length of time and not pick up some Shakespeare.

Lucy looked up at her. Amy had only seen Lucy look this tired once before, right after Mom had died. “Hanging in there,” Lucy replied.

Amy crawled forward until she could lay her head on her sister’s lap. Lucy’s hand gently stroked through her hair. “I love you. I want you to talk to me about anything, okay? This is a lot of shit. I want to be there for you but I don’t know how so just—just talk to me, okay?”

“I’ll talk once I know what to say,” Lucy replied. She gave a small, hysterical laugh. “I’m a writer and I have no words.”

“You’ll find them. You always do.” Amy sat up and kissed Lucy on the cheek. “I thought… Mason’s out, and so I thought I’d stay with Jess. Let you three have some time. I know you missed them, and they—they understand. I don’t.”

Lucy nodded, pressing their foreheads together. “Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She gave Wyatt and Flynn each stern looks as she grabbed her overnight bag. “Whatever she wants, you give it to her.” Normally she’d include a joke about that including orgasms but she didn’t think this was the right moment. “Understood?”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” Flynn said dryly. “And keep your taser ready,” he added under his breath as he followed her to the door.”

Amy nodded, following his advice as she stepped out into the hallway and Flynn locked the door behind her.

_On my way,_ she texted Jess. She suspected neither of them would be getting a lot of sleep that night, but she also suspected that however much it was, it would be more than the three people in this apartment got.

* * *

Lucy wasn’t sure if it was the fact of this case or if it was from the two men being away from her, or a combination, but they were touching her more than usual. Flynn gently brushed her hair out of her face as he walked past her to sit down. Wyatt sat next to her on the couch and hauled her feet into his lap. She was wearing just an oversized dusky pink sweater and a pair of tan yoga pants, her hair loose, and she felt warm and comfortable and _safe_.

The boys made her feel safe.

“Tell me about the trip,” she said. “I want to hear all about it.” _I want to be distracted._

“I told Flynn I’m bi,” Wyatt blurted out.

That was… not what she’d expected. “That’s great,” she said, and meant it. “Did I ever tell you about… about the inspiration for Kate Drummond?”

“Are we seriously all interested in more than one gender and none of us mentioned it until now?” Flynn asked.

“I was never public about the inspiration. I didn’t want to embarrass Carine—that was, is, her name—and my mom didn’t… she never knew. I never… told her.”

“My dad would’ve killed me if he’d found out,” Wyatt said, his voice dull. “Literally.”

Lucy reached over and squeezed his hand. He’d told her about Flynn, or rather hadn’t denied it when she’d called him out on it, but that was different from declaring his sexuality and she was proud of him. She wanted him to know that.

Then what Flynn said caught up with her and she whipped her head around. “Wait, what?”

Flynn laughed. “Oh, he didn’t tell you about his childhood boyfriend either?” Wyatt groused. “Glad to know I’m not the only one you kept that info from, buddy.”

“Details,” Lucy said, reaching over to poke Flynn. “Now.”

This was good, she thought. This was… this was something. The three of them talking about liking other genders. Talking about sexuality and attraction. Talking about relationships. Warm and soft, close by, touching casually.

This, she thought, could become something.

And then they woke up to the body on her doorstep.

* * *

The four bullets were expected by now. Lucy waited, heart in her throat, for Jiya to find out what they said.

B-U-R-N.

“Lucy will burn,” Jess said aloud, when it seemed like nobody else was going to have the guts to do it.

“He’s angry with me,” Lucy whispered.

“He said it on the call earlier,” Denise pointed out. “You were supposed to figure him out. In his mind, he gave you fair warning that he was going to kill again—it’s not just a threat, it’s his way of expressing his disappointment.”

“I’m disappointing a serial killer,” Lucy said, a bubble of hysterical laughter rising up in her throat. “Great. He and my mother can have a great chat after I send him to Hell.”

“Our third victim was a taxidermist,” Jiya said, as everyone politely ignored the implications of Lucy’s last sentence. “Taxidermists work with embalming fluid.”

“How were we supposed to figure that out from just the damn smell on a set of bandages!?” Wyatt snapped.

“A taxidermist?” Lucy repeated. A taxidermist did… animals.

Their second victim was a dog walker.

“That’s it.” She grabbed the files. “Search the history of the place this woman worked, see if there was a dog brought in, sometime over the last few months, and the dog walker, see if any dog was hurt or died on her watch.”

“And the personal injury lawyer?” Rufus asked as the team started to scatter.

“Injury from a dog bite?” Lucy hazarded. “Once we have the other two we’ll be able to nail him.”

“There was a break in,” Denise announced, typing into the computer, “two months ago at the place our victim worked. A few things were stolen most notably the taxidermied body of a dog named Boo Boo. His owner apparently was only able to pay half up front, couldn’t afford the other half so the company wouldn’t turn Boo Boo over to him.”

“Was Boo Boo a dachshund?” Flynn asked. “Because our dog walker was the one holding onto a Dalmatian when the dog got free and attacked and killed a dachshund that was walking in the same park.”

“Find out the name of the owner, maybe he reached out to the lawyer, see if the case failed,” Denise instructed.

“On it,” Rufus said, searching the database. “Ah-ha, here we go, Michael Conrad, Boo Boo’s owner.”

“That’s him,” Lucy said. She could feel it in her gut. “That’s him, Denise, Denise—”

“I’m getting a team,” Denise said. “But you’re staying in the damn car.” She looked at Wyatt and Flynn. “That means you, too.”

Wyatt and Flynn looked outraged, but Lucy wasn’t going to argue. She was going to have to look this man in the eye once they got him to an interrogation room. She could miss the messy arrest.

They rolled up in front of Michael Conrad’s apartment, with Wyatt, Flynn, and Lucy staying back in one of the cars as Denise led Jess, Rufus, and a SWAT team up to the front steps.

The team had just entered through the first-floor door when the squad car phone rang.

Lucy looked up, and saw a man standing in the window of the third floor apartment. He had a phone to his ear, and a gun in his right hand.

She held out her hand, her fingers trembling. “Let me answer it,” she whispered.

Flynn picked up the phone and hesitated for a moment, his eyes dark like the bottom of the ocean, but then he held it out to her.

Lucy took it.

_Don’t ever let them see you flinch._

“Hello?”

“You think you’re so smart, Lucy. You think just because you found me that you won?” Michael Conrad’s voice was angry, mocking, but also breaking. Thread-bare. A man pushed to his limit.

“It’s over.” Her voice didn’t waver. “But we can still talk, Michael. Isn’t that what you want? We can talk. You’ll get to meet me, the two of us face to face.”

Michael sighed. “If only, Lucy. If only.”

He walked away from the window, and Lucy heard a shot through the phone.

She didn’t even realize she’d dropped it. Or gotten out of the car. Not until she heard Flynn and Wyatt yelling.

* * *

“His apartment is full of formaldehyde,” Denise said. “He was extracting it to make a military-grade bomb. We found schematics of the precinct up on his wall. He wanted to go out with a bang.”

“It fits his profile,” Flynn said grimly.

Lucy said nothing. She didn’t know what to say. She felt, somehow, as if she’d been robbed. Unable to even talk to the person—and yet, she hadn’t wanted to talk to him. She’d been dreading speaking with him in the interrogation room. Why was it that she now felt as though something, some kind of closure, had been taken from her?

Nobody said it, but she could see it in all of their eyes. _Go home, Lucy. Go home. You flinched. You need to go home._

She was aware she was projecting some of her mother onto them but she couldn’t make herself stop.

“I’m going home,” she said, her voice sounding numb and far away to her own ears.

“We can come with you,” Wyatt offered. He glanced at Flynn, and Lucy couldn’t help but notice that they’d started standing closer together since coming back from the ranch, almost on top of each other. She kept seeing aborted movements as well, like they went to touch but then remembered they couldn’t or shouldn’t.

They’d been newlyweds, or acted the part, while undercover. How much had they done during that time? How used to touching and smiling and _closeness_ had they gotten?

She knew it was awful, but envy made her gut clench. She couldn’t deal with that right now, not on top of everything else.

“I think I’d like some alone time,” she admitted. “But I’ll text you when I’m home safe.”

Wyatt and Flynn exchanged a look, but neither of them argued.

_You flinched, Lucy, _Carol whispered in her head, and oh, she was going straight home and getting into the bath and imagining herself drowning in it.

* * *

Flynn rubbed at his temples, watching as Wyatt grabbed a soda from the fridge. He wanted to touch him, had gotten used to it at the ranch, but he didn’t know what was allowed and what wasn’t now that they were back home. Oddly enough, being back on familiar ground was what felt wrong. “Someday you should probably go to a meeting.”

“Someday you should go to therapy,” Wyatt shot back.

It was an old, tired argument. Flynn had gone to therapy on Lorena’s insistence, shortly after she’d found out she was pregnant with Iris. He had been cut up over the loss of friends in battle, and the ghost of Matej had been haunting him—

Point was, Lorena had told him to go to therapy, or he’d be down a wife. Flynn had chosen the former.

But after about a year of that, he’d stopped. Iris had been born, he’d gotten a lot off his chest, and things had been fine.

Then… well. He’d been such a mess and Wyatt had been there and he hadn’t really known how to get himself back in the door of an office. And so he’d just let Wyatt take care of him, and he’d made sure Wyatt never had more than two beers a night, and encouraged Wyatt to drink soda, and it had been one of those things they just muddled through without exactly talking about it.

“What, no snappy comeback?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn shrugged. “Something about the case isn’t… sitting right.”

“What about it? I mean sure, I’d like to have arrested the guy instead of having him go that way but we don’t always get the ending we want.”

“But it’s all so—so neat,” Flynn said. “It’s all… just like…”

“Just like Keynes,” Wyatt said, his voice soft.

Flynn swallowed, nodded. “Keynes nearly got Lucy. He nearly got both of you. Twice now, he’s had someone I care about in his grasp and it was sheer fucking luck that you and Lucy have escaped.”

“He had you against the ropes too, don’t fucking forget that. You’re lucky that Jess is the definition of amorality and that Amy likes causing chaos.” Wyatt tried to open the bottle of soda and frowned when he failed. “Can you give me a hand?” He held the bottle over to Flynn.

Flynn stared at him, a light flaring in his mind. “Hand.”

Wyatt frowned. “Yes. Hand. Give me a hand, Flynn, put those gigantic paws of yours to work and open the soda.”

Flynn stood up. “Wyatt. When Conrad was standing at the window, he had the gun in his left hand. And the killer… the bruising from the second victim, from pressing the gun to her side, it was on her left side. But when we found Conrad, the gun was in his _right_ hand.”

Wyatt put the soda down. “And the gunshot went off the moment Conrad left the window—there wasn’t time to switch hands—”

“And why would he leave the window to fire the gun anyway?” Flynn asked. “Why wouldn’t he want us to see? Unless he wasn’t really shooting himself.”

“He wanted us to think the case was closed, he wanted us—he played us just like Keynes—”

Horrible suspicion churned in Flynn’s gut, and turned into certainty.

The supplies, the ethanol, the cell phones, all in preparation for a bomb—Denise saying this was the kind of person who wanted attention, who wanted to go out with a bang—

_Lucy will burn._

Flynn jumped onto his feet. “Denise took the detail off Lucy’s place, she’s alone.” He grabbed his jacket. “Get Denise on the phone, do it, now!”

“Where are you going!?”

“To her apartment!”

* * *

Lucy sank into the bath, letting the hot water soothe the aches in her joints. Not that it did much for the other aches.

It felt like her spine was coiled tight, her stomach knotted, and it just wouldn’t unknot, no matter what she did.

But the bath had helped. The silence helped. Amy was at Jess’s, again, and Mason had noted Lucy’s mood and was out for drinks with some theatre friends.

Lucy tipped her head back, letting the crooning voice of Ella Fitzgerald fill her ears… the ringing of her phone…

She opened her eyes. Why was her phone ringing?

She got out of the bath and groped for her phone, turning it off. She was trying to relax, detox, decompress. Whatever.

Lucy sank back down into the water again—only for the phone to start ringing once again.

It was Flynn.

Well, if he was calling her twice in a row, it had to be important. Lucy sighed, picking up the phone. “What is it, Flynn?”

“The killer wasn’t Conrad!” Flynn yelled. He sounded like he was sprinting. “Lucy he faked it! He’s still alive! Get out of there!”

Lucy heard an odd—was that beeping?

She turned, and heard a mechanical voice say, _goodbye, Lucy._

* * *

“Get out of there!” Flynn sprinted towards Lucy’s building. “Lucy—”

Through Lucy’s phone, he heard some kind of mechanical voice, and stopped dead. _Goodbye, Lucy._

The penthouse exploded, fire bursting out of the windows, sending glass raining down on the pedestrians below.

Flynn dropped the phone and screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The episodes used for this chapter are Once Upon a Time in the West (7x07) + Tick, Tick, Tick… (2x17)


	8. Chapter 8

Flynn had never run so fast in his life. He burst into the lobby, heading straight for the stairs. In case of a fire the elevators would stop working. Fuck, he’d never been so glad in his life for stupid cardio workouts.

People were running down the stairs, fleeing their apartments, most of them still in pajamas. Flynn shoved past them, his lungs and legs burning, feeling like he was caught in a fire himself. Two levels, three levels, four levels, how many damn floors did this apartment building have—

He hit the penthouse level. The front door of Lucy’s apartment was still, somehow, closed. He ran at it, shoving hard with his shoulder. “Lucy! Lucy!”

He backed up, took another run at it—and the weakened door buckled, coming off its hinges. “Lucy!”

At first there was nothing. He ran through the burning remains, trying to see through the smoke, his eyes and throat aching. “Lucy!”

No, no, she couldn’t be—not Lucy, burning bright, Lucy who was so full of life, who forced herself to still burn even when she was scared of the results, even when she wasn’t sure of the reception she’d get, Lucy who pushed and poked and prodded, demanded the best out of those around her—

Flynn heard a distant cough.

“Lucy!”

The coughing got louder, and then came a tremulous, “Garcia?”

The stairs were on fire too. Shit. He dashed up them, wincing, and followed the coughing into Lucy’s bedroom. Or the remains of it, anyway.

And there, crouched in the bathtub, covered in dust and ash, shaking but alive, was Lucy Preston.

“Thank _God_,” Flynn said, and for the first time in years, he actually meant it.

He ran over, taking off his jacket. “Here, here, take this, c’mon.”

Lucy shakily wrapped the jacket around herself. “I was… t-taking a bath. Trying to… decompress. I d-dove back into the t-tub as the bomb went off.”

“And it saved your life. You could survive the Blitz in this cast iron monster.” Flynn gently worked his hands under her and scooped her up. “Just hold onto me, okay?”

“N-no problem.” Lucy wrapped her arms so tightly around his neck, Flynn thought she might accidentally strangle him.

Flynn ducked his head down, trying to keep low as he rushed back out of the apartment. Lucy gave a small cry as she observed the burning wreckage of her apartment. “Garcia, Garcia, no, my mom—my mom’s—”

“Your life is more important than a memento, Lucy, I promise that your mother would agree.”

Lucy tried to fight him, but she was smaller and weaker. “Garcia stop it’s—it’s all I have of her, just her books, and her—her notebooks, Garcia _stop_, her and—oh God my dad’s, my dad’s watch, it’s—Garcia stop let me—let me get them! Garcia! Stop!”

He held onto her more tightly so she couldn’t buck out of his arms, carrying her down the stairs and through the first floor, into the hallway. “_Žao mi je_,” he murmured. “_Žao mi je, _Lucy, I’m sorry, _žao mi je_, we have to go.”

Lucy stopped yelling when they got halfway down the stairs. She just pressed her face into Flynn’s shoulder.

The fire fighters were arriving as he emerged into the lobby. “Top floor!” he yelled. “Penthouse! It’s the worst in the master bedroom.”

“Lucy!” It was Amy, being held back by Jess. “Let me go get her, let me—Lucy!” She caught sight of them and Jess finally let her go as Amy sprinted for them.

“I’m okay,” Lucy said faintly, then coughed violently.

“Why do you insist on getting in trouble when I’m not there?” Amy sobbed, clinging to her sister, apparently ignoring or not even noticing that Lucy was wrapped up in Flynn’s jacket and nothing else. “Why do you keep getting into trouble when I can’t save you?”

“I’m okay,” Lucy repeated.

“We’ve got an ambulance here,” Jess said, her voice struggling to remain steady but wobbling nonetheless. “C’mon, this way.”

“You have to let her go,” the EMT said. “Sir?”

Flynn realized that he did, in fact, have to let go of Lucy so that she could be examined for injuries. He forced himself to relax his grip. “She needs scrubs, or something. She needs clothes.”

He set her down, and Lucy reached for him, grabbed his hand. She tried to say something, then coughed violently for several moments, great hacking coughs that shook her entire body. “Check you—smoke—damage.”

“Yeah, I’m the one who needs to be checked for smoke damage,” Flynn replied. But he sat down next to her and held her hand as his heart continued to pound at breakneck speed in his chest.

Like hell he was letting go.

* * *

Wyatt darted between all the various cars, the fire fighters putting out the last of the flames. “Flynn! Lucy! Flynn!”

Fuck, where were they, where were they!? If Flynn had been there, of course he would go in after her, they would both be in that blaze, both of them—both of them—

“Wyatt!” Jess screamed at the top of her lungs, waving her hands. “Wyatt! Over here! We’re here!”

He ran over, nearly knocking over a police officer. “Watch it, jackass!” she yelled after him. Wyatt ignored her, heading for Jess.

Jess grabbed him and directed him to the back of an ambulance, and there they were.

Amy sat at Lucy’s feet, hugging her legs, chin on her knee and talking to her. Lucy was wearing what looked like a hospital gown and Flynn’s jacket, her arms being bandaged by an EMT as she breathed through an oxygen mask. Next to her, holding her hand, was a smoke-covered Flynn.

Wyatt’s knees gave out and Jess nearly went down with him trying to keep him upright. “Whoa, cowboy.”

Flynn looked up, and Wyatt stumbled to him, grabbing him, feeling punch drunk. “I thought—I thought you were both—”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. He just sank his head down onto Flynn’s shoulder.

“Excuse me.” The EMT was polite, but firm. “I need to take this one to the hospital. Only one person in the ambulance with her.”

“I’ll go with her,” Amy said quickly.

Nobody protested. Flynn hauled himself up out of the ambulance, and the EMT clucked her tongue. “You too, mister, into that other ambulance, pronto.”

Wyatt stepped back to let everyone do their thing, then climbed into Flynn’s ambulance and tried not to panic as he watched the doors close on them all, hiding Lucy from view. He wanted to hold Flynn’s hand, to cling to him, but he wasn’t sure if Flynn would be okay with that, and he didn’t want to get in the way of the EMTs.

They led Wyatt to the front desk once they got to the hospital, since he was listed as Flynn’s emergency contact and had to fill out all of his information. Wyatt didn’t even realize his hands were shaking until someone took the clipboard and pen from him.

He looked up and saw Jess.

She handed the clipboard and pen off to a nurse, then sat down next to Wyatt. “Amy’s still with Lucy. Come here.”

Wyatt rested his head on her shoulder and felt her arms come around him, and the next thing he knew, he was sobbing.

* * *

Rufus paced up and down as Denise finished talking with the firefighters and bomb squad. “He waited until we took off Lucy’s detail and then put the bomb in her apartment,” Denise announced as she walked over.

“Anything salvageable?”

“Some personal items, mostly the ones upstairs. The bomb was downstairs.” Denise sighed, and for a moment, she looked ten years older. “Wyatt and Jess?”

“At the hospital. Lucy didn’t have any burns except for her arms, but they both inhaled a lot of smoke.” Rufus swallowed. “What do we do, captain? We missed something. I don’t know what, but we missed it.”

“Our man was set up, made to look like the killer.” Denise paused. “You should sleep.”

“No offense, captain, but I can’t sleep after this. Give me something to do.” Two of his closest friends were in the hospital after being targeted by a serial killer and the other two were there to keep an eye on them. Fuck, Wyatt must be losing his goddamn mind over there.

Denise nodded, looking like she understood. “Then take a team and go back to the apartment. There must be something in there, something that will give us a clue. CSU should still have the place cordoned off.”

Rufus nodded. “On it.”

He headed back towards the police line, where a sizable crowd had gathered. “Rufus!”

Mason shoved his way to the front of line, grabbing Rufus by the front of his jacket and hauling him to the side. “What happened, is she—”

“Lucy’s alive,” Rufus said quickly. “Flynn’s alive, they’re both going to be okay, I think. They’re all okay. Um—check with Amy, she’s at the hospital, give her a call. I have to go, we gotta figure out who did this.”

Mason patted his face gently, and then stepped back, nodding. “Get the bastard.”

The apartment was dark, silent, with tape up just like they’d left it.

Rufus stood in the middle, turning in a slow circle, trying to take everything in. If what Wyatt had relayed to Denise on his way to Lucy’s apartment was right, then their real culprit had been hiding in this apartment while the team had been inside. There’d been no time for the guy to leave the apartment, someone on the team would’ve seen him.

He had been right here. Undetected.

Rufus walked into the bedroom. The closet wasn’t walk in, but it did seem a little shallow…

He knocked on the back of the closet, getting not a dull thud but a slight echo. It was hollow behind here.

He felt around until he found an indent in the wood and yanked, the false back coming free to reveal a small hiding place just big enough for an adult, energy bar wrappers scattered on the floor—and, worryingly, what looked like rope and duct tape wrapped around a pipe.

Their real killer had been keeping his patsy hostage in his own apartment, and for fuck knew how long.

Rufus swore under his breath and pulled back, grabbing his phone to take pictures. “Guys, come in here, CSU needs to get on this.”

As the team got to work, Rufus called Denise.

“He was here, right here, the whole time,” he told her.

Denise’s voice was stone. “We’re catching this bastard.”

Rufus agreed. “I’m working on it. Tell Jess to stay with Wyatt. I’m on it.”

They were going to find whoever was targeting his friends, no matter what.

* * *

Wyatt didn’t open the door to Flynn’s room. He made it explode off its hinges and smack into the wall, but obviously didn’t register it as he skidded to a halt beside the bed and then gingerly—annoyingly so—sat down on the side of it.

Flynn raised an eyebrow at him. “They put me on oxygen, it’s not like I was in a coma.”

“You’re okay now, though?” Wyatt looked like he was seconds away from launching himself onto Flynn like a dog that was finally reunited with his owner after said owner had been away at war for four years.

Flynn nodded. “They want me to take it easy for the next few days. I didn’t get it too badly, no scarring or anything far as they could tell.” He paused. “What time is it? There’s no clock in here.”

Wyatt winced. “It’s, uh, noon.”

Flynn immediately tried to sit up and Wyatt shoved him back down onto the bed with two hands on his chest. “No you fucking don’t, Garcia Whatever the Fuck Your Middle Name Is Flynn.”

“How do you not know my middle name?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t!”

“It’s Ernest.”

“No it’s not you fucking liar…”

Jess stuck her head in. She looked exhausted. “Hey, Flynn, I lied and said I was your sister-in-law, they told me you’re good to get checked out. And Amy said Lucy’s awake.”

“You were my sister-in-law,” Flynn pointed out. “Until you and Wyatt got divorced.”

“No,” Jess corrected him. “I put Wyatt down as your husband on the form and said I was his sister.”

Then she smiled brightly and closed the door again.

“…this is one of those moments where I wonder why I married her,” Wyatt noted, sounding like he was considering flinging himself out the window. He looked back at Flynn. “You want to find Lucy?”

“You haven’t seen her?”

Wyatt shook his head.

Fuck, yes, he wanted to see her. “Then let’s find her.”

* * *

Lucy could hear yelling outside her door.

She blinked, the room swimming back into focus.

“Only family—” a woman was saying.

“I don’t give a damn,” someone else—Lucy knew that voice—

“Flynn,” she said, or tried to say, only to find her voice was raspy.

“Oh thank God.” Amy lunged forward from the chair where she’d been curled up. “You’re okay, thank fuck. I sent Jess—” She paused, as if hearing the argument outside for the first time.

Amy stood up and kissed Lucy’s forehead. “Be right back.”

She opened the door and the voices got louder, then slipped out and closed it behind her. Lucy closed her eyes and focused on breathing. She still felt so tired, and achy, but a lot better than before. When she looked down, she saw her forearms were covered in bandages. She vaguely remembered those hurting, and she remembered coughing a lot, and being put on oxygen… but then she must’ve been asleep because she didn’t remember anything after that.

The door opened again, only this time Amy didn’t step through.

“Flynn?” Lucy croaked.

Flynn made a choked noise and then crossed the room in three strides, kneeling by the bed. “You’re awake.”

Wyatt followed, closing the door behind him before he walked over to sit on the edge of her bed on the other side. “Flynn nearly got into a fist fight with the nurse before Amy smoothed things over.”

“Amy… where is she?”

“Jess took her to get something to eat. She hasn’t left you.” Wyatt tentatively slid his hand towards hers and Lucy seized it, squeezing tightly. “It’s noon, Luce, you’ve been out for about twelve hours.”

Flynn pressed his forehead to the bed and Lucy moved before she could second guess herself, sliding her hand into his hair, her thumb stroking along his temple. “You all right?” she whispered.

Flynn nodded.

“Doctors cleared him,” Wyatt said. “And Rufus has been keeping us updated. He went back to the apartment… found a hidey-hole. Our real killer had been keeping his patsy locked up in there, and that’s where he hid when the police came knocking.”

“So he’s still out there.” Lucy’s stomach twisted with dread. “Trying to carry out his promise.” _Lucy will burn._

“He failed once.” Flynn looked up, taking her hand and gently pulling it out of his hair, bringing it down and squeezing. For a wild moment, Lucy thought he might kiss her knuckles, but Flynn simply set her hand down and she could’ve smacked herself for such a ludicrous flight of fancy. She wasn’t in an Austen novel, after all. Who kissed hands nowadays? “We wont let him try again.”

“You’re safe here,” Wyatt added.

Lucy shook her head. “I’m not too bad… they’ll want me on bed rest at home, not here. Not if they don’t need to hook me up to one of those… machines again.”

Flynn’s thumb brushed across her knuckles. “Wherever you are, we’ll be there. You’ll be safe.”

Lucy smiled. It hurt a little, and she could already feel her eyes closing again. But she did feel safe, with them. They’d never let anyone hurt her. “I know.”

She felt Flynn set her hand down, and her forehead creased, but then she felt a warm hand brushing her hair back, and oh, that was all right. So long as he kept touching her.

“Go to sleep.” Someone squeezed her hand. That was Wyatt. “We’re here.”

An excellent idea. “’s long ‘s you’re here…”

“Yeah, we’re here, Luce,” Wyatt replied. She thought she heard another pained noise from Flynn, but she couldn’t be sure. “We’re not going anywhere.”

She fell asleep again.

* * *

Rufus started hanging things back up on the murder board. “Okay, so our killer obviously had to have known Conrad, right? He had to have found the guy out somehow, introduced himself.”

Denise frowned, leaning back against the desk. Jess was still at the hospital—Rufus could imagine that dealing with a distraught Amy and a distraught Wyatt at the same time was quite a handful. Not to mention handling Flynn who undoubtedly thought he was fine and didn’t need something as silly as bedrest after inhaling fucktons of smoke. “What do we know about Conrad’s habits?”

“He was a loner, except for his dog,” Rufus said. “According to neighbors he kept to himself, could be surly but was generally polite, seemed sad. His boss said he was a good worker but a bit odd, didn’t really have friends.”

“What about something else, there has to be something else.” Denise scanned the murder board. “Nobody has just work and nothing else. Even if they don’t go out physically there’s life online. Fandom, multiplayer online games, Instagram… fantasy football…”

Rufus snapped his fingers. “When we had beat cops canvas the area, they stopped by a local bar, it shows the Knicks games. Conrad was a Knicks fan.” He tapped a picture of the apartment, showing a poster of the sports team. “But there’s no television in his apartment.”

“…so he must’ve gone to the bar to watch the games.” Denise smiled. “Good thinking. Let’s pay the bartender a visit.”

* * *

The bartender was helpful—helpful enough that they knew someone, a young man judging by the woman’s description, had approached Conrad the night of a big Knicks loss and got a cab. The same cab men hung out around the area, ready to faithfully pick up the sloshed sports fans. Asking around after the young man’s description got them a cabbie who could pull up the credit card used to pay that night.

One problem.

“So this guy is using the name Marcus Oriol.” Jiya pulled up the guy’s information and showed it to Denise and Rufus. “Which is fascinating, seeing as Marcus died four years ago. Heart attack, the poor man. Of course, given that he was seventy-five at the time I’m not surprised.”

Denise tapped her fingers along the back of Jiya’s chair. Well, technically it was Rufus’s chair, but Jiya was sitting in it. Rufus didn’t mind. Jiya had offered to let him sit in the chair while she sat in his lap but Rufus had flushed bright red and said not while Denise was with them.

Pity.

“See what we can ping off the credit card,” Denise ordered. “This guy has to have ordered something off of Amazon in the last few years, see if you can trace any orders to an address.”

“It’s depressing that you know it would be Amazon.”

“Marri, I don’t want any of your lip.”

“My lip? Gee, whiz, captain, I didn’t know we were in the 1940s…”

Denise gave Jiya a warning glare and then headed into her office. “I’m getting our SWAT team on standby. The moment we have an address, we’re going in. I’m not letting this guy slip through our fingers a second time.”

Jiya looked up at Rufus, who nodded wearily. “I’ll help.”

“Do you think…” Jiya fidgeted. “Could I look at the recordings of the phone calls the guy made to Lucy?”

“Yeah, sure. Not sure how much it’ll help, though. We tried to undo whatever voice scrambler he was using so we could get his actual voice but it never sounded right.”

“I’ll figure it out.” Even if she had to stay up all night to do it. Two of her friends were in the hospital and another three were essentially out of commission as a result.

She stood up and took Rufus’s face in her hands, kissing him softly. Rufus looked bewildered down at her. “I love you too but was there a particular reason for that?”

“I know it’s not easy.” Jiya smoothed down his shirt. “You’re taking over this whole thing on your own. But you’re doing really well. And I’m proud of you.”

Rufus wrapped his arms around her waist. “Yeah, well. I’m not sure it changes my thoughts.”

“I know. I’m not asking you to. I’m just saying… you’re amazing, that’s all. I think you’re amazing.”

Rufus kissed her. “You’re not too bad yourself.” He stepped back. “Let’s flush this rat out of his hole, shall we?”

Jiya slapped his ass and Rufus turned around, glaring at her. “And yet you get mad at me when I call you pet names at work…”

Jiya grinned at him. “I’m just a mystery.”

“And I can’t wait to spend years solving you.”

“Wow.”

“You walked into that one, Marri.”

“You cheesy asshole, get away from me, you disgust me.”

Rufus pulled her in and kissed her forehead. “Uh huh. Sure I do.”

Jiya shoved him away. “You’re gonna give me cooties.”

Rufus let himself be shoved and walked backwards away from her. “See you later!”

Jiya knew she had a goofy smile on her face, but she couldn’t have erased it for the world.

* * *

When Lucy woke up again, Flynn was asleep in the chair next to her, Jess was nowhere to be seen, and Wyatt and Amy were talking in low voices in the corner.

Amy saw she was awake, her eyes going wide. “Lucy.” She walked over and snatched up a cup of water. “Here, sip this.”

Lucy dutifully sipped the water, and then yawned… and at some point went back to sleep.

At some point she almost woke up, but not quite. Someone was singing in a low raspy voice, stroking her hair, the song a language she didn’t speak but found she loved anyway.

But she slipped back under before she could ask what the song was, or who was singing it.

When she woke up the next time, Jess was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, and Amy was lying on a pile of what looked like jackets, her head in Jess’s lap as Jess softly hummed and stroked Amy’s hair. Wyatt was passed out in the chair, his phone in his hand like he’d been making calls.

The bathroom door opened, and Flynn emerged. He froze.

Lucy smiled. “Hi. Um. I don’t suppose there’s some food around here?”

Flynn crossed to her bed like he was holding himself back from sprinting and sat on the edge, his fingertips running down her cheek like he was checking to make sure she was real. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Lucy found herself just staring at him, smiling. Flynn’s eyes looked very soft right now.

“Flynn,” Jess said dryly. “Food?”

“Right.” Flynn pulled back. “I’ll get you something.” He squeezed Lucy’s hand and then slipped out the door.

Jess pointed down at Amy’s head. “When she wakes up would you mind telling her you’re fine so that I can get her home and into a shower? None of them have left. It’s been 48 hours.”

“Since I was last awake?”

“No, just straight through. Rufus has been updating us.” Jess nodded towards Wyatt’s phone in his hand. “Denise reported to the press that you died. Mason’s the only one besides us to know you made it out. We want our guy to get cocky.”

“He’s already cocky,” Lucy murmured. Her throat felt a lot better and her voice was back to normal. “That’s his fatal flaw. If I was writing him… hubris.”

The door opened again and Flynn returned with a tray of food, which he gently set down in Lucy’s lap. “Here.” He reached up and took her hair, pulling it back out of her face and braiding it.

“I didn’t know you could braid hair.”

“I used to do it for my…” Flynn swallowed. “For Iris.” He finished the braid and tucked it behind Lucy’s shoulder. “There you go.”

Lucy realized she really was starving, and tucked into the food.

Wyatt’s phone rang and he jolted up, nearly falling out of the chair. “Mother of—” He saw Lucy was awake. “Luce.” He moved forward, gently taking her shoulder. “You’re awake for good this time, I hope?”

“I hope so too. I think I am. I feel a lot better.”

Wyatt smiled at her, looking like he’d literally roll over and play dead if she asked him to.

Jess cleared her throat. “Your phone.”

“Oh fuck shit fuck.” Wyatt grabbed his phone and answered it. “Captain, hey. Lucy’s just woken up. She’s doing well, yeah.” Wyatt lowered the phone and whispered, “She says she sends good thoughts, they’ve all been worried.” He focused back on Denise. “What? Oh, fuck, yeah, I’ll come.” He looked at Flynn. “They found the real killer’s apartment. He’s been living under an assumed name. Rufus is about to lead the SWAT team in, you want to come?”

Flynn looked at Lucy. She took his hand. “I’m just going to be sitting here. You go.”

“We’ll look after her,” Jess promised.

Flynn looked at Lucy for a long moment, then leaned in, kissing her on the forehead. Lucy inhaled sharply, her breath stilling in her lungs, her eyes fluttering closed. Flynn kissed her soft as a breeze.

He pulled back, standing as he did so, and looked at Wyatt. “Let’s go.”

Wyatt quickly leaned in, kissing Lucy’s cheek, warm and sweet, and then he was hurrying to follow Flynn out the door.

“Is she okay?” Lucy asked, nodding at Amy as she started to eat.

Jess smiled a bit wearily. “Yeah. She just loves you a lot, that’s all.”

“Amy… Amy was the one who looked after Mom and Dad. She watched… and she was the one who found Mom. At the end. It’s… she shouldn’t have to go through that again.”

“She won’t,” Jess promised. “Because you’re going to be okay. And she won’t—I’m—I won’t ever let her—be alone.” Jess’s face flushed a little.

“You know I… I approve of you two, right? You’re… I think you two are good for each other. I’m sorry if I haven’t made it seem that way. I just… but she likes you. More than she’s ever liked anyone.”

“Good. Because I like her more than I’ve ever liked anyone.”

Lucy smiled, taking a sip of water. “That’s all I can ask of the person dating my baby sister.”

* * *

Wyatt glanced at Flynn as they went up the steps, Rufus in the lead. “You sure you should be carrying?” He didn’t trust Flynn not to pump their guy full of lead if he was there.

Flynn clenched his jaw, then relaxed it, sighing. “I’ll follow procedure.”

Wyatt nodded, patting Flynn shoulder. The last few days had been terrifying. He never wanted to be in a situation like that again, and Flynn and Lucy had been pretty okay, considering.

At least Rufus had kept his damn head on straight and had made actual headway in this.

They got up to the apartment door, and Rufus knocked. “Hello? Anyone home? We have a warrant, this is the NYPD. We’d like to ask you some questions.”

There was no answer.

Rufus knocked again. “This is the NYPD, we need you to open up.”

No answer.

Rufus nodded at the SWAT team, and the door was kicked in. Wyatt felt a burst of vicious satisfaction at that.

Rufus stepped in first, Flynn after, Wyatt third. “Clear!” Rufus yelled from the bedroom.

“Clear,” Flynn echoed in the kitchen.

Wyatt stared at the living room. “Guys…”

Pages. Hundreds of them. Pages from books, all hanging from the ceiling. It was like a modern art display.

Flynn strode forward, grabbing a page and reading it. “This is Lucy’s.” He grabbed another. “This is too.” Another. Another. Another. “They’re all Lucy’s.”

Wyatt walked over to a curtain that was hanging down over a wall. Why was there a curtain? On the table in front were several more pages, and what looked like a finished manuscript.

_Thieves of Time by E.W._

Huh. Wyatt picked it up. “He’s a writer. Look at this manuscript.”

That would explain that theatricality of it all, the way it plotted out like something from a book. He set the manuscript back down again, and looked at the curtain. Why would someone hang a curtain in front of a wall?

Wyatt drew the curtain aside, and he heard Flynn make a pained noise behind him. Wyatt didn’t blame him.

The curtain was hiding a collage of pages from magazine articles about Lucy, book covers from her Kate Drummond series, pages and pages, all of them coming together to create…

“Holy fuck,” Rufus said. “That’s Lucy. That’s a picture of Lucy.”

It sure was. And Wyatt wanted to rip it off the goddamn wall. Right before he burned the apartment down.

* * *

Jiya frowned in frustration as she fiddled with the tech. When someone scrambled their voice it was hard to get the original voice back, sure, but it wasn’t impossible. She wasn’t as much of a techie as Rufus but she was generally a sight better than this. Come on, come on…

Mason, sitting next to her—and graciously letting her fiddle with his technology in the sound booth of a theatre—gave a heavy sigh. “Jiya, as much as I admire your tenacity, you do know what the definition of insanity is.”

“I know I can get this.” Jiya adjusted the scales once again, fine-tuning. “This guy’s voice is in here, I just have to…”

“Yes, I’m sure, but I do have a rehearsal of _Twelfth Night _coming up shortly and we’ll need the sound booth so—”

Jiya froze. “Holy fuck.”

“What?” Mason frowned at her. “Something wrong?”

“We’re all idiots,” Jiya whispered. “All of us, with our—our assumptions, every single one of us, God bless Shakespeare.”

“I mean, I agree, but what’s Shakespeare got to do with it?”

Jiya began adjusting everything on the sound booth. “We’ve been operating under the assumption that our killer is a man. They’ve certainly done everything to make us think that. Picking not one but two male patsies. Disguising their voice… but when I adjust these and aim for… a woman’s voice…”

Slowly but surely, the killer’s words to Lucy unscrambled. Became clearer, crisper. And higher pitched.

The voice of a woman.

“Goodbye, Lucy Preston,” the woman said. “Goodbye, Lucy Preston. Goodbye, Lucy Preston. Goodbye, Lucy Preston…”

Jiya listened to the recording as it repeated, and repeated again, her jaw open. “Get Rufus,” she whispered. When Mason didn’t move, she said it again, louder. “Get Rufus!”

* * *

It was decided they would watch the apartment and wait for their guy to come home. Flynn couldn’t even pace the length of the damn surveillance van because there was no room to even stand up, and it was making him want to rip something to shreds.

Two hands landed on his shoulders and he nearly jumped out of his damn skin. “Whoa, hey, it’s just me,” Wyatt said. The van was just tall enough that Wyatt could stand up in it, lucky asshole.

“I know what you’re doing,” Flynn said, relaxing into Wyatt’s palms as Wyatt began to rhythmically press them into Flynn’s shoulders, massaging. “And it’s not going to work.”

“Mmm, whatever you say.” Wyatt didn’t stop, though, the bastard. Flynn tipped his head forward and tried to focus on Wyatt’s hands instead of using his own hands to rip open the throat of the person responsible for hurting Lucy.

They stayed like that for a few minutes. Maybe even half an hour, Flynn wasn’t sure. Rufus kept an eye on the cameras the whole time. “Thanks,” Flynn said, belatedly. “Seems I’m always in crisis mode and you’re always keeping me propped upright.”

“I’m only good in crisis mode, so it works out,” Wyatt replied, a bit of self-directed bitterness lacing his tone.

Flynn straightened up and put his hand over one of Wyatt’s, stilling him. “Hey. I know you fucked up with Jess.” He turned to look at Wyatt. “But that doesn’t mean you fuck up all the time. Or that you are a fuck up. You can stop beating yourself up, Wyatt. We all forgave you a long time ago.”

Wyatt stared down at him, and for a moment, Flynn was once again tempted to do something stupid—especially now that he knew Wyatt wasn’t straight, that Wyatt liked men, too—but his eyes caught something on one of the cameras behind Wyatt.

“Hey, Rufus…”

Rufus answered his ringing phone. “Carlin here. Oh, hey Jiya. Huh?” Rufus’s face went stiff.

“Is Lucy okay?” Wyatt asked. Flynn’s heart raced in his chest.

“Lucy’s okay,” Rufus said, hanging up the phone. “But Jiya unscrambled the recordings. Our killer is a woman.”

Flynn looked back at the camera, suspicion thrumming in his veins. “Rufus… we don’t have a sniper up on the corner of that building, do we?”

Rufus got to his feet and followed Flynn’s line of sight. “No. No, that’s not one of ours.”

Flynn lit out of his seat before Rufus even finished the sentence.

He tore out of the van, down the street, racing for the fire staircase on the side of the building. Up above, the woman he’d seen, redheaded with binoculars, was cleaning up her gear.

“Flynn!” Wyatt was yelling. “You sonofabitch the doctors said no heavy cardio! Flynn!”

Flynn ignored him, leaping up the fire escape until he got to the roof.

The woman was racing to the edge of the building on the opposite side of the roof—and leapt, landing heavily on her feet on the other side but still going.

Flynn backed up, giving himself a good head start—and found himself yanked back. “Wyatt—”

“No!” Wyatt looked furious. “Absolutely not you fucking lunatic!” He grabbed Flynn by the shoulders. “I get it, I get it, you couldn’t save Lorena and Iris, you weren’t even there for it, but the doctors said—you inhaled a bunch of fucking smoke and you’re not eighteen anymore, Garcia, you’re forty-fucking-five and you will die if you chase a suspect across a fucking rooftop while your lungs are still healing!”

They panted, staring at each other, Wyatt’s hands deadly tight in his shoulders, nails digging in.

“You’re not gonna lose her,” Wyatt promised. “And we’re not losing you in the process, okay? You don’t have to—you don’t have to push yourself to the fucking grave to make up for it. I—I might not have ever met my sister in person, but I know that’s not what she would want, okay?”

Flynn stared at him. “You know you remind me of her, sometimes. This is one of those times.”

“Good.” Wyatt’s eyes looked wet, but then he was turning Flynn around and shoving him. “We’ve got her face now, we’ve got her on camera. We’re gonna find her, Flynn. Now get your ass back to the ground.”

* * *

Lucy walked into the precinct, her arms still bandaged but healing nicely according to the doctors. Amy was at Jess’s apartment, getting some well-deserved rest. It felt so good to be out of the hospital again. Even if according to the public she was dead. Well, maybe she could be in the fun position of attending her own funeral? That would be hilarious. Could she persuade Denise to let her do that?

“There she is!” Rufus said, grinning and walking up to her, arms outstretched.

Lucy hugged him tightly. “I hear I have you to thank for keeping this investigation running. You’re the best, Rufus. We don’t deserve you.”

“Nobody deserves me,” Rufus declared.

There was the sound of a throat clearing and they both turned to see Jiya standing there.

“…except you, of course, my love,” Rufus said quickly, bowing.

Jiya walked up to hug Lucy. “You’re damn right.”

“Lucy.” Denise walked up, and to Lucy’s surprise, pulled her into a hug as well. Lucy hugged her back, feeling herself tear up unexpectedly. “We’re glad you’re all right. And we look forward to you being alive again.”

“I feel pretty good for being dead.”

“Please don’t say that,” Flynn groaned.

Lucy grinned and rushed up to him, hugging him tightly. Flynn wrapped his arms around her, his hand in her hair, and she swore for a second she felt his mouth pressed to the top of her head.

“Thank God,” Wyatt said, and Lucy turned, pulling him in too, smushing her face in between them, feeling their heartbeats in each of her ears.

“We have a positive I.D.,” Denise said, never one to let a moment linger.

Lucy pulled back, turning to look at the captain. Denise held up a photo, showing a severe looking redheaded woman a few years older than Lucy. “Emma Whitmore. Graduated summa cum laude from CalTech. Disappeared from… basically everywhere, about eight years ago.”

“Disappeared? Any reason why?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“She’s obsessed with you,” Wyatt said quietly. “She had a picture of you… made out of scraps from your newspaper and magazine articles. She hung every page from every one of your books up from her ceiling.”

“But how did this obsession start?” Lucy pointed out, feeling her throat close up a bit. She’d known she’d have to face this, she’d known that going into this, but she still found herself not quite prepared for it. “Why did she fixate on me?”

The phone rang on Flynn’s desk.

Flynn rolled his eyes and picked it up. “Detective Garcia Flynn of…” He paused.

Lucy recognized the look on his face. “No.”

Flynn closed his eyes. Swallowed. “She’s not here.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Lucy whispered.

She reached up. Flynn’s fingers were tight around the phone, like a marble statue, unwilling to give it to her, but she coaxed it free and pressed it to her ear. “Hello?”

Over the sound of the receiver came the noises of someone… a woman, a woman whimpering in fear. Possibly pain. “Sh-she’s gonna—she’s gonna h-hurt me…”

“Shh, no, it’s okay, she won’t, it’s okay, who are you?”

“Now, now, Miss Preston, we don’t make promises we don’t keep.”

Lucy swallowed. “You’re proving rather elusive, Miss Whitmore.” At least the woman wasn’t using a voice modulator anymore to scramble herself. She’d probably figured it wasn’t worth continuing that particular charade given the circumstances.

“You are supposed to be dead.” Pure venom laced Emma’s tone.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“It was supposed to be over. It was supposed to be done. But now? Now I have to keep going.” A gunshot echoed over the receiver.

Lucy found she didn’t even have the voice to scream her rage.

* * *

“We found the body,” Denise said, sounding exhausted. They were all exhausted. “No fancy message this time. A young woman in her mid-twenties. Blonde. Looks like she was a medical student.”

Flynn looked over at Lucy, who was sitting in his chair, looking like she’d aged a hundred years. “She just shot her.”

“Yes.”

Lucy rubbed at her eyes. Flynn slid over a cup of water. “She’s just… it’s just carnage.”

“Here’s what I want to know,” Wyatt said. “How did she find out Lucy was alive? Nobody knew. We told the press she died. The only people who knew were…”

“…the EMTs and cops at the scene,” Flynn finished.

To Flynn’s surprise, Wyatt went pale. “The cop, the cop that I—I ran into her, I was running towards you, and Lucy, and I—I smacked into this cop, this redheaded cop and she said… she said watch it, and I didn’t even think about it, I just—I was worried about you two.” Wyatt looked at Flynn, his eyes wide. “She was there. She was pretending to be a cop.”

* * *

Flynn watched as Lucy paced up and down. “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”

Lucy didn’t even bother to glare at him.

Jess entered, coffee in hand. “Sorry, sorry. Got distracted. Amy says hi, she’s going to do some shopping for more clothes, she says she’s been doing laundry for ages but all of yours and hers still smell a bit like smoke so she’s soaking them.”

“I don’t deserve her,” Lucy said quietly.

“What’s got everyone stumped?” Jess asked.

“Emma’s motivation,” Flynn said. “She’s clearly got an unstable personality. She could’ve fixated on anyone, but she chose Lucy. Why her? There had to have been a trigger.”

Wyatt walked in from the break room, manuscript in one hand, donut in the other. Flynn stared at him. “What are you reading?”

“Hmm?” Wyatt stopped and held up the manuscript. “This was in Emma’s apartment. She wrote it, according to the author name on the title page. E.W. I’m trying to see if there’s any clue in here, build a bit more of a profile for her. It’s well-written.”

“Better than mine?” Lucy said sardonically, still pacing.

“Not possible,” Flynn said.

Lucy narrowed her eyes. “I thought you hadn’t read my books.”

“She needs an editor,” Wyatt said, plopping into his seat. “She gets a bit too into the technobabble at times. And she likes her villain too much, the book’s more about him than about the heroes. Either make him the main character or edit him down. And she’s not as good about capturing immediate human emotion.”

Lucy finally stopped pacing as she joined Flynn and Jess in staring at Wyatt. “Are you seriously taking a red pen to Emma Whitmore’s manuscript while we’re trying to solve this?” Flynn demanded. “Wyatt—”

“—you’re a fucking genius,” Lucy said.

Flynn looked at her. “What?”

Lucy dove for the computer. “I have some contacts in the publishing industry. Listen, Emma Whitmore’s book is about historical mysteries starting with… what’s the plot, Wyatt?”

“Um… there’s a lot going on but it takes place during World War I and features Marie Curie?” Wyatt winced. “How much do you want me to give away?”

“That’s the same thing that one of my Kate Drummond novels dealt with.” Lucy was typing wildly. “This might sound crazy but… what if she felt I stole her idea? If she submitted her novel to the same literary agent or editor that I submitted mine to, she might think… and the timing would work out almost perfectly…”

“I can deal with that,” Jess said. “I haven’t been here, you guys have. You all should get some rest. I can reply to emails, stop by publishing houses, do some digging.”

Lucy shook her head. “No, no, it’s my contacts, I got this.”

Flynn glanced at the clock. “It’s pretty late, Lucy…”

“This is my case. She’s coming after me and she’s hurting people to do it. I can handle this.”

“Lucy…” Jess folded her arms. “You need to go home and get some sleep.”

“I don’t have a home!” Lucy screamed.

They all paused. Flynn stood up as Lucy seemed to realize how loud she’d been and stepped away from the computer. Her hands were shaking. He wanted to grab them and hold them, steady them.

“Yes, you do,” Wyatt said quietly. “It’s secure.”

“And it has people who care about you,” Flynn added.

Lucy looked at him, then at Wyatt, then back at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why can’t we be?” Flynn took her by the shoulders. “Lucy. You need to rest. She won’t get you at our place. I promise.”

“I know she won’t,” Lucy replied, her voice weighted, and yet soft for all of that.

“Then it’s your home,” Wyatt told her. “For as long as you need it.

* * *

Lucy entered the apartment quietly. She hadn’t been here since… since she’d told Flynn the information she’d found out about Lorena and Iris’s deaths, and he’d kicked her out. God, how long ago had that been? Months? It felt like a decade, and yet, standing here, it also felt like yesterday.

“I can take the couch,” she said, watching as Flynn put pillows and blankets on it. “I’m the smallest, it makes the most sense.”

“You’re our guest,” Flynn replied, sounding appalled.

“You said this was my home,” Lucy countered. “And in my home, I sleep where I want. I want to sleep on the couch. I’m not kicking either of you out of your rooms, at least not tonight.”

Flynn and Wyatt looked at each other and evidently decided it wasn’t worth it to argue with her tonight, not after they were all so exhausted. Lucy wondered if they even knew that they did that: had entire conversations just by looking at each other for a few seconds.

“All right,” Flynn said. He looked at her. “I’m going to hop in the shower, but then I can whip up something for us to eat.”

“It’s midnight.”

“And when was the last time any of us ate? Donuts don’t count, Wyatt,” he added, as Wyatt opened his mouth.

Wyatt pouted. Lucy wanted to kiss that pout right off his mouth.

“You really don’t have to do that, Flynn,” she said instead.

“I know.” Flynn gave her a small smile, the kind that had sass laced through it. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest. “I want to. Be out in ten.” He vanished into his room.

Lucy sank down onto the couch, burying her face in her hands. “I feel like it’s been ten years since this morning.”

“I get that.” Wyatt sat down next to her. “We’re going to get through this.”

“You know the strange thing?” She looked up at him. “I feel so lost right now. But that’s not new. Instead it feels like… like she’s just giving me a good reason to feel lost. Like now I have an excuse when really I’ve been struggling with this… this emotion, this state of mind, this entire time. I joined you all to help you, but also because it—it gave me something to do every day, it gave me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And I still don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it. For myself? Maybe? I don’t know. And here comes this woman who’s blaming me for her crimes and I don’t know that she’s all that wrong.”

Wyatt sighed, his elbows resting on his knees. “I’m not the philosophical one. You have to go to Flynn for that. But my Gramps… he was my mom’s dad. And he was the only good person in my life before Jess. He tried to make things better, with my dad. Maybe he would’ve if he’d stuck around but he died of a heart attack when I was ten.” Wyatt blew out a breath. “Anyway, he told me one piece of advice that I… I often would forget. Maybe if I’d remembered it with Jess… but anyway. He’d say, _find what you’re fighting for, and you’re good_.”

Wyatt looked at her. “You don’t have to have all the answers. But figure out what it is you’re fighting for, at least day by day. It can change. But find it, and you’ll have something. You’ll have a… north star.”

Lucy gave into her exhaustion and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“There’s no place we’d rather be, Lucy. Either of us. I can promise you that.”

Lucy closed her eyes, hearing the shower start up, and let herself feel safe. Just for now. Just this once.

* * *

Flynn was woken from a sound sleep by the phone ringing.

He pawed for it, squinting at the clock by the side of the bed. Five a.m. Jesus Christ.

“Hello?” he said, sitting up as he answered the phone. Ugh. He was getting too old for this ‘five hours of sleep’ bullshit.

“I figured out why Emma hates Lucy,” Jess said. “Um. I think you and Wyatt should tell her. I’m gonna go home, check on Amy, get some sleep.”

Flynn braced himself. “Lay it on me.”

Lucy was still asleep on the couch, curled up under one of the war, cuddly blankets that Lorena’s mother had knitted. Her dark hair was fanned out across the pillow, and even in her sleep, her hands were curled into fists, like she was ready to fight someone.

Flynn tiptoed past her to Wyatt’s room, slipping inside.

Wyatt was a goddamn heavy sleeper who also tended to instinctively try and punch someone if they tried to disturb that sleep. Flynn had become a ninja in the service of waking Wyatt up without earning a black eye in the process. He went around so that Wyatt was facing away from him, then wrapped his hand around Wyatt’s wrist and tightened his grip at the same moment he ran his other hand through Wyatt’s hair. “Hey, sleepy head.”

Wyatt jolted awake, tried to swing, but found his wrist caught in Flynn’s grip. For a second his eyes were wild, like a horse that someone had just thrown a rope around, but then he registered the warm voice and hand in his hair, and sank back down onto the bed, calming. “Wha’ time izzit?”

“Five. Jess called. She figured out why Emma Whitmore’s targeting Lucy.” He kept stroking through Wyatt’s hair. Sleepy Wyatt didn’t question that kind of thing, and Flynn knew it was cruel to do this to himself, but he also couldn’t stop himself from indulging, just a little. “We need to tell her.”

Wyatt nodded, and Flynn pulled away as Wyatt sat up and rubbed at his eyes. “Sometimes I hate our job,” he said quietly.

Flynn held himself back from reaching out again. “I know.”

Lucy was easy to wake up. All he did was sit on the edge of the couch and her eyes flew open. “It’s me, hey, you’re okay.”

Lucy’s breath was coming in hard and shallow, and even when she saw him, it didn’t quite even out. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re fine. Don’t apologize.”

“What’s going on?”

Flynn looked at Wyatt, who was in the kitchen getting Lucy some water. “Jess called. She… she spoke to your contacts. Did some research. It turns out…”

Wyatt brought over the water and Lucy sat up, wrapping the blanket around her like a cape. Lucy accepted the water and Wyatt sat down on her other side, like he was prepared to hug her at a moment’s notice.

“Emma Whitmore submitted her novel _Thieves of Time _to the same publishing house where your mother had contacts. The same publishing house where your novel was being considered. Your mother decided that the books were too similar, so she… she killed Emma’s novel. Used every contact she had to make sure Emma couldn’t get published, so that you’d have a better chance with your novel.”

Lucy stared at them. “What?” The word was barely even a whisper.

“Emma feels you and your mother killed her career. And Carol is, unfortunately, passed on, so that just leaves…”

“Me.” Lucy took a big gulp of water. “And this whole time—my mother told me I was so talented, and here she was—she didn’t trust that my novel would just stand on its own. She had to kill off all competition. Wow.” Flynn had only heard one other person sound so bitter before: himself. “No wonder she wants me to burn.”

“This doesn’t excuse any of her actions,” Wyatt said fiercely.

“I know.” Lucy drank more water. “I just—my mother, ladies and gentlemen.”

Flynn’s phone rang again. So did Wyatt’s. So did Lucy’s.

Flynn answered his. “Hello?”

“Get down to the precinct,” Denise said, her voice tight. “Now.”

Wyatt’s eyes were wide as he listened to whoever was calling him. “Right. Yeah. Breathe, just breathe, okay? We’re on our way.”

Lucy’s face was white. “Rufus says… Emma left another message.”

Flynn stood, offering his and to help Lucy up. “Then let’s go.”

* * *

Jess’s eyes were red and she was oddly quiet as they all assembled into the briefing room, where Denise inserted the CD that had been dropped off at the precinct. _For Lucy _was all it said. Everyone knew who it was from.

Flynn wanted to ask Jess what was going on, had she found something else, and why was she back at the precinct in the first place, but then the DVD started up and the large screen on the wall came to life.

It showed Emma Whitmore standing in a small dingy room, a window behind but with it taped over so that nobody could see out of it. No landmarks. No way to tell where she was. Sitting in the middle of the room with Emma behind her, tied to a chair, was a hostage. A hostage Flynn recognized.

Jess made a noise like someone had hit her. Next to him, Flynn felt Lucy tremble.

It was Amy.

“Say hello to everyone, Amy,” Emma said, smiling at the camera.

“Go to Hell,” Amy spat.

Emma walked over to her and grabbed a fistful of Amy’s hair, jerking her head back to expose her face to the camera. Flynn could see there was a huge bruise on Amy’s eye. Fuck.

Lucy made a noise like someone had stabbed her. On the other side of the room, Jess was gripping her pen so hard that her knuckles were white.

“Look at you all. Well, I can’t see you, but I can imagine how you look. Like shocked lambs. It must be hard for you, to lose. To fail. Especially when you’re not used to it.” Emma paused. “Well, some of you are. You’re used to losing something in its infancy, aren’t you, Jessica?”

Wyatt looked over at Jess, whose face drained of blood so fast that Flynn worried she’d faint.

“Jess?” Wyatt looked confused. “What’s she mean?”

“That’s right.” Emma jerked Amy’s head and Amy hissed through her teeth. “I know all your little secrets. I know about the letter of resignation in Rufus’s computer.”

Rufus went stiff, and everyone swiveled their heads around to look at him.

“I know all about Wyatt’s bad little habit. What _would _your hometown say about how long you look at the other boys, Wyatt?”

“We’re not listening to this,” Flynn spat, reaching for the remote.

Lucy’s hand shot out, grabbing his wrist. “Don’t,” she whispered. “She wants us to see this, there has to be something in it besides her taunting. There has to be a clue.”

“Flynn’s tragic backstory isn’t even worth mentioning honestly,” Emma went on. “Rather stereotypical, if you ask me. Pity.” She released Amy and walked closer to the camera. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Lucy. Your mommy isn’t here to do the work for you anymore. You want to save your sister? You meet me alone. No tricks, neither of your pretty boys with you. Just. You.”

“Don’t do it!” Amy yelled. “Don’t fucking listen to her!”

“I’d hate to have a… what term would be best, Jessica? A miscarriage of justice?”

Jess’s pen snapped in half, ink spurting all over her hands. “I—” she said, and then her stomach heaved, and she dashed out of the room.

Wyatt looked at Flynn, who nodded at the door. _Go after her._

Wyatt took off. “Jess? Jessica?”

On screen, Emma gave an address. “How about we say, midnight? Maybe you’ll make it this time.” Her smile was slow and cold, like a barracuda. “Amy and I can’t wait to see you there.”

“Lucy, don’t—!” Amy’s sentence was cut off as the video ended.

Lucy groped for a chair, and Flynn helped her to sit down. “Rufus, can you get her some water?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah.” Rufus shook his head like he was snapping himself out of a daze. “Sure.”

He left the room. Flynn sat down facing Lucy, their knees bumping. “Hey.”

“My _sister_,” Lucy whispered. “Flynn, she took my sister.”

“We’ll get her back.”

“I didn’t know about my mother, about what she did.” Lucy’s eyes were wide and wild, searching his. “How could I not know?”

“She hid it from you, Lucy. People like that—they’re good at hiding things. They’re good at showing people only certain sides of themselves.”

“I thought I did this all by myself.” Lucy gestured vaguely at the air, her gaze darting around like she was looking for answers. “I thought I—but I was still under her thumb, I was still being manipulated by her, she _used _me, and now—now this person’s been hurt and they’re taking it out on Amy, Amy’s never done anything—”

“Emma is a sociopath,” Flynn growled. “Lucy, look at me.”

Lucy’s eyes slowly drew back to his.

“If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else. She would find a way to hurt people and to use them. She was thwarted by Carol, yes. So she fixated on her. But the world is not a kind place. Someone else would’ve thwarted her. And she would’ve gone after them. Or she would’ve been successful and she would have manipulated and used everyone around her. No matter how this slices, Emma Whitmore hurts people. It is not your fault what she did, and what Carol did to her is not an excuse or a justification for what she’s done. Your mother stopped her career as a writer, Emma has murdered people, how is that any way balanced? It isn’t.”

“I just feel like…” Lucy looked down at her hands. “I feel like I don’t know who I am. Like I never really have. Like even beyond the grave my mother is defining my life.”

“I know who you are.” Lucy’s gaze snapped back up to him. “You’re Lucy Preston. You’re an amazing writer. You’re a kind and compassionate person. You’re the biggest history nerd that I know. And you’re my partner. My friend.”

He paused. _You’re the woman I love._

How could he possibly say that to her right now? It wouldn’t be fair. He couldn’t dump his feelings on her like this, right now. They had to save Amy, and it would feel like—he didn’t want her to think that she owed him anything, or that he only thought these things about her because of his pining for her. Lucy was emotionally wrecked right now.

No, he couldn’t. Even if the words beat against the inside of his chest and he wanted to, so, so badly.

“You might not know who you are, and that’s okay. But we know. We know and we love you, just as you are, not because of your legacy or anything that your mother did. She didn’t suggest you help the NYPD. She didn’t give you the idea for your new series. You’ve done all of that. You’ve brought killers to justice, you’ve brought peace to families. You’ve made us all—you’ve made our lives better, Lucy. Jess and Amy met because of you. Rufus and Mason met because of you. I think Wyatt would try and get the damn moon for you if you asked.”

Lucy’s face went pink and she smiled in an adorably embarrassed way.

“You’ve made my life better.” That was as close as he could get to saying it. “And we’re going to get Amy back. You have my word.”

Lucy fumbled for his hand, squeezing it. “I trust you,” she whispered.

Flynn couldn’t even tell her how much it meant to hear that. “Then let’s go get her.”

* * *

Normally Wyatt wouldn’t barge into the women’s restroom, but he figured it would be all right just this one time. “Jess?”

Jess was standing at one of the sinks, her ink-stained hands wrapped around the edges, her shoulders hunched. She was shaking.

Wyatt approached slowly. Carefully. “Hey. Jessica. What’s going on?”

Jess reached up, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t know how she found out,” she whispered.

“How she found out what? Jess, talk to me.” Wyatt rubbed her back. “Hey. How long we known each other, huh? It’s me, you can talk to me.”

Jess looked up at him, and fuck, her face was an absolute mess. “You’re going to be mad.”

“Okay…” Wyatt took a deep breath. “Well whatever I’m mad about it’s not going to be as important as how you’re feeling, not right now, anyway, so tell me and we’ll talk about it.”

“Why couldn’t you have been this mature when we were married?”

“I ask myself that every day.”

Jess grabbed some paper towels and blew her nose. “Fuck.” She turned on the tap and tried to rub the ink off. “Look, I can’t do this if I’m looking at you, okay? Just…” She grabbed some soap, hands shaking. She took some deep breaths. “Back, right after—when we moved to New York, and we lost Lorena and Iris, and Flynn was a mess, I… I found out I was pregnant.”

Wyatt lost all feeling in his legs. He hadn’t known what Jess was going to say, but he sure hadn’t guessed it would be that.

“I didn’t know what to do. If I should tell you or not. We’d agreed to give it another chance but then you had your hands full with Flynn and I wasn’t sure… I was debating how I should tell you, but I… before I could I…” Jess turned off the tap, gripping the handle so hard that Wyatt thought she’d snap it off. “I had a miscarriage.”

Oh fuck. That was why Emma had said those things. Shit. Fuck. Wyatt wanted to grab Emma by the throat and squeeze until her neck fucking snapped.

“It was all this… this blood…” Jess blew her nose again. “And I thought—I hadn’t told you about the baby so how could I tell you… and so I didn’t tell anyone. And the longer it went on the harder it was. And you were busy with Flynn. And it was—I mean. I was only—it wasn’t like I’d—I hadn’t even had an ultrasound yet. But.” Jess’s face screwed up, and Wyatt’s heart hurt so much he wanted to rip it out. “I wanted that baby, Wyatt, I wanted that baby…”

Wyatt pulled her in, hugging her as hard as he could. Jess clung to him, and Jess was not the clinging type, but she was now, sobbing into his shoulder and Wyatt’s heart broke for her, broke for what she’d lost, and what she’d carried by herself all this time.

“I’m sorry.” He stroked her hair. “I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t—I was wrapped up in Flynn, I didn’t see that you were hurting and I should have. I took you for granted for so long, Jess. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t see. I’m sorry you had to do this by yourself. I should’ve been there.”

“She can’t take Amy.” Jess’s voice cracked. “She can’t, Wyatt, she can’t take her, she can’t take her from me—”

“She’s not gonna, okay?” He tightened his grip. “We’re gonna get Amy back safe. I promise.”

Jess just kept crying, and well, she’d held him through enough of his own breakdowns. Wyatt would hold her as long as she needed.

* * *

They got everything ready in near silence. The only talking was about how Denise and Rufus’s teams would approach the building.

“You’re staying in the van,” Denise ordered Lucy, Wyatt, Jess and Flynn. “You’re all too close to this.”

Jess was quiet, sitting in her chair, her face a blotchy mess. Lucy didn’t know what had happened with Jess and Wyatt after he’d run after her, but Wyatt looked like he’d gotten jumped in an alley and had the shit kicked out of him, and Jess wasn’t saying anything.

“Is Rufus really thinking about quitting the force?” Wyatt asked Flynn quietly as they sat there, watching the monitors in the surveillance van. Lucy could see the two ‘hot spots’ that were highlighted on the heat-seeking cameras, showing the room with Amy and Emma inside.

They were rather still, she noted. Neither of the spots of orange-yellow heat were moving. Amy probably couldn’t move, even if she tried. Lucy’s throat constricted.

“I don’t know,” Flynn admitted. “I know he’s got a lot on his mind lately. Spending a lot of time with Mason. I don’t know.”

Lucy kept watching the monitors. It just didn’t… ugh. Life wasn’t a novel. Life didn’t tie itself into convenient little bows the way novels did. In a story you controlled everything. You could give it all purpose. You could layer meaning, bring characters full circle, make sure there was a happy ending. Provide symbolism. Life wasn’t like that. Life was messy and meaningless and insane and coincidental in a way fiction could never be, and that was exhilarating and horrifying in equal measure to her.

But even so—this whole time, Emma had been playing this out like a novel. It made sense, now that Lucy knew the truth. Emma was a writer, just like Lucy. She’d been pitting her own mystery writing skills against Lucy’s, seeing which out of the two of them was the better detective, the sharper mind.

And, well, if she was writing this… but she wasn’t writing it, Emma was, and who was she to say what Emma would decide was narratively satisfying?

“Penny for your thoughts,” Flynn said quietly, sitting next to her.

“I just—it’s stupid.”

Flynn snorted. “You are far from stupid, Lucy. You’re a genius.”

“And how would you know?”

“I’m also a genius.”

She found herself smiling and forced herself to stay serious. “It’s just with this whole… waiting for us at midnight thing. She has to know we’d send in a team to take her down. And I can’t help but think… that’s not how I would write it.”

“Well, how would you write it?”

Lucy scanned the surveillance cameras. “I would… I would fake the hot spots. I’m not sure exactly how… heat lamps, maybe? A bunch of them. And I’d have some kind of nasty surprise waiting for the team. C4 maybe. Something that would be triggered when they opened the door. Or maybe on a countdown to midnight. Then I’d wait nearby to watch. I’d make the hostage watch too.”

“Brutal.”

“This is a serial killer. Of course it’s brutal. I just—wouldn’t make it real. She is.” Lucy stood up, still scanning the cameras. She pointed. “There. That building. It’s got the perfect view. That’s where I’d wait.”

Flynn looked at Jess. “Get Christopher on the line. I think they’re walking into a trap.”

“You don’t know that—”

Flynn stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Lucy. If this is what your instincts are saying, then I trust your instincts.”

Lucy couldn’t help but remember what he’d said to her when she’d brought him the information on his family’s deaths, when she’d dug where she shouldn’t have. Now he trusted her, was going off just her word. She almost wanted to cry.

Instead she took a deep breath. “Okay. Someone needs to go in and find her. But we can’t send a team, if she sees them leaving, sees that they know something’s wrong, she’ll cut and run.” And she might hurt Amy in the process.

Flynn nodded. “Wyatt will go in. I’ll take up a sniper position, there’s plenty of windows in that building. Jess, tell Christopher to stay where she is until you give her the all-clear, but tell her not to send her team into that room. See if Rufus and his team can sneak out around the other side.”

Jess nodded. Flynn grabbed a sniper rifle. “Wyatt?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I got you.” Wyatt grabbed his own gear. “Lucy?”

Lucy was putting on a bullet proof vest. It was hers, the one that said WRITER on it. The gag gift from Amy and Mason. _Amy. _She saw them all staring at her. “I have to go in. It’s what Emma wants. I’ll go in, and Wyatt can cover me.”

“No,” Wyatt and Flynn chorused at once, but then Jess spoke up.

“She’s right.” Jess’s voice was hoarse. “Emma wants Lucy. She wants a showdown. Mano e mano. It’s how it always goes in the stories, isn’t it? The hero and the villain face off alone.”

Lucy nodded.

Flynn looked like he wanted to crush someone’s skull in. “I’m keeping my eye on you.”

Wyatt murmured something to Flynn that Lucy couldn’t catch, and then he walked over to her, opening the van door. “Let’s go. I’ve got you covered.”

The building was slated to be torn down, according to the signs posted everywhere warning of danger and trespassing.

“Flynn says he can see someone moving on the fifth floor,” Wyatt whispered, able to communicate with Flynn through his earpiece.

Lucy nodded, taking the stairs, Wyatt checking doorways and covering her six as they got up there.

The fifth floor was littered with construction equipment and had a large window perfect for a view of the building where Denise and Rufus were, the best viewing spot for watching that building explode and go down in a flurry of concrete and dust.

Sitting in front of the window, yanking at the ropes holding her to the chair, duct tape over her mouth, was Amy.

Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. “Stay back,” she warned Wyatt. “Whatever Emma and I do—you get Amy out of here.”

“I can’t leave you.”

Lucy shook her head. “I need you to do what I say, Wyatt, all right? Get my sister out of here. Please.”

Wyatt stared at her for a moment, looking like a puppy that had gotten kicked and then left out in the rain. “Luce…”

Lucy took his face in her hands. “Please. I need you to do this. Get Amy out of here. I’ll be fine.”

Wyatt swallowed, glancing over at Amy. “Once, back in Texas, we were pinned down in a firefight with a drug cartel. We needed backup. I was told—to run and get that backup. So I did. But when I came back… the officers I’d been with were all dead.” He looked back at Lucy. “I promised myself I wasn’t ever going to leave again.”

“You’re not leaving me. Flynn’s covering us. You’re going to be right here. But Emma can’t use Amy as collateral on me. I need you to make this a fair fight for us. Get Amy out of here. Okay?” Lucy shook his face slightly. “Okay?” she repeated.

Wyatt looked like he hated himself for it, but he nodded. “Okay.”

He stepped back into the shadow of the doorway from the stairs, and Lucy took a deep breath. One foot in front of the other, she reminded herself, and she walked forward into the middle of the room. “Emma?”

“Clever, clever girl.” The sound of slow, sarcastic applause echoed through the building. “I wasn’t sure if you’d figure it out. I said just you and me, Lucy, and here you are bringing a whole team? Not sportsmanlike.”

Amy screamed underneath her gag, enraged, making her chair shake so violently that Lucy worried Amy would tip the damn thing over.

“Killing people isn’t sportsmanlike, either,” Lucy replied. “Nor is setting off a bomb in someone’s apartment.”

“Not my fault Christopher called off your detail.” Emma stepped forward into the light, and for the first time, Lucy saw in the flesh the woman who had taunted her for weeks.

Rage like a black, terrifying, oil-slick creature filled her lungs, her veins, her throat. Lucy’s fingers twitched with the urge to clock Emma cold across the face, to make Emma feel even half of the helplessness and the pain that Lucy had felt drowning her ever since this sick game had started between them.

“What are you going to do now, Lucy Preston?” Emma’s smile was cold. “Save your sister? Try to convince me what happened to me wasn’t your fault? Appeal to my humanity?”

She had to distract Emma so that Wyatt could free Amy, take Amy off the chessboard so she couldn’t be made a pawn of anymore. And, well. Those self-defense classes had to be good for something, didn’t they?

“No,” Lucy said, even as she knew that Flynn was about to lose his mind when he saw through the scope what she was doing. “I’m here to kick your ass, you sociopathic bitch.”

Emma looked startled, for once, and that split-second was all Lucy needed to launch herself at her.

* * *

Wyatt did not approve of this.

“What the fuck is she doing!?” Flynn was roaring in his ear.

“You wanted me to what, stop her!? You try doing that while also stopping the serial killer and freeing the hostage!” Wyatt snapped back, quietly slipping through the room to get to Amy.

Amy panted, sucking in great gulps of air once Wyatt ripped the duct tape off her mouth. “Oh God, I will never take oxygen for granted again.”

Wyatt got out his Swiss army knife and sliced the ropes holding her. “Can you walk?”

“I might not look pretty but she didn’t break anything.” Amy lurched to her feet and nearly collapsed. Wyatt caught her just in time.

“Okay, great. Jess, get the medical team on standby, I’m coming out with Amy.”

“Where is Lucy!?” Flynn roared again.

“I can’t see her,” Wyatt snapped. “Emma didn’t look armed.”

“Because a gun is the only way to kill someone.” Wyatt heard the sound of equipment being shoved away. “Fuck this, I’m coming in.”

“Hurry.” Wyatt hoisted Amy up and then got his arm under her legs, scooping her to his chest bridal-style. “Okay, Preston 2.0, let’s go.”

“I’m not leaving my—”

“Yeah, listen, out of the two of you, I’m more confident in Lucy’s ability to kill me if I don’t get you to safety than your ability to kill me if I leave. Flynn, hurry up!”

“No cardio, you said. Take it easy, you said…”

Wyatt hated how in love with the jackass he was.

He got Amy outside, where a medical team was in fact waiting, Jess at the front. He knew the moment Jess saw them, because the scream she let out was one Wyatt never wanted to hear again. “Amy!”

Wyatt passed Amy off to the medical team as Jess snatched up Amy’s hand, her fingers trembling as she pushed Amy’s hair out of her face. “’M okay, Jess, just a few bruises,” Amy said, or tried to say, but her lip started to wobble and her eyes got shiny and wet.

“I’m here,” Jess promised. She kissed Amy’s knuckles. “Baby, I got you, I’m here, you’re safe, I’m here.”

Wyatt squeezed Jess’s shoulder and then turned back. “Where are you going!?” Jess yelled.

“Lucy’s still in there and so is Flynn!”

He wasn’t leaving anyone behind again.

* * *

Lucy liked to think of herself as pretty good in a fight now.

But Emma was better.

She got in a few good punches and Emma’s head snapped back, a snarl forming on her face as she lunged for her, the two of them striking wildly, crashing to the floor, rolling over and over each other. Lucy couldn’t recall a time she’d ever been so angry before, couldn’t remember ever looking at someone and thinking, _I want to kill you_ the way she did right now.

They rolled again, Emma ending up on top, her hand around Lucy’s throat. “You spoiled little _princess_,” she snapped, punching Lucy in the mouth. Lucy felt her lip split, blood filling her mouth, and then Emma punched her again, this time striking just to the left of her eye, and Lucy’s head snapped to the side with the force of it.

“Lucy!”

Flynn’s voice echoed through the room, and Emma froze, her fist cocked back for another punch, her face frozen. Lucy clawed at Emma’s arms, trying to loosen Emma’s grip on her throat, even as she saw Emma wildly calculating her chances. Stars danced in the edge of Lucy’s vision, her movements growing less coordinated.

“Lucy!” Flynn’s voice was closer now.

Emma released Lucy and scrambled to her feet. Lucy gasped for breath, her lungs and throat burning, and coughed, swallowing blood.

“Shit, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.” Flynn scooped her up. A gun, Flynn had a gun on him, in his holster.

Lucy snatched it up and struggled to her feet, firing wildly in the direction Emma had taken. One, two, three, four, five, six, until the gun click, click, clicked uselessly and suddenly seemed to gain ten pounds in weight and her arms fell. Her whole body fell.

Flynn caught her. “Hey, hey, Lucy. Fuck. Give me that.” He took the gun from her, holding her tightly, and she could feel him, leech warmth from him, like she was cold, so cold, all the heat drained from her, and he was giving it back. Tears stung her eyes and she hated how the smell of him made her want to burrow into his chest and never emerge.

“She’s getting away,” Lucy whispered.

“I don’t give a damn.” Flynn still held her tightly. She wondered if she could convince him to never let her go. “I’m getting you out of here.”

They got halfway down the stairs when they were met by Wyatt, who sagged against the wall in relief. “Please don’t make me leave again,” he whispered at her.

“No promises,” Lucy replied.

Denise was watching them all with pursed lips as they emerged. “That might be the most reckless thing you’ve ever done, Miss Preston.”

“Didn’t really have a choice,” Lucy pointed out.

“Lucy!” It was Jess, waving. “I’ve got her!”

Lucy broke away from Flynn and Wyatt, running towards Jess even as Flynn shouted in protest at her exerting herself.

Amy was lying in the ambulance, getting patched up. Lucy nearly collapsed onto her but settled for taking Amy’s hand and awkwardly half-hugging her, kissing her cheek.

“We match,” Amy croaked, gently poking Lucy’s eye. Lucy had no doubt a large bruise was forming there, just like the one on Amy’s eye.

“You’re okay?” Lucy asked. She glanced up at Jess, who nodded.

“I’m all right. Just a bit worse for wear.” Amy smiled. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Lucy pressed her forehead to her sister’s and breathed for a moment, just breathing her in. “I love you so much.”

“I love you.” Amy squeezed her hand. “You’re stuck with me for life, Lucy. You won’t lose me. Not even in one of your… crazy time traveling scenarios.”

Lucy gave a wet laugh, feeling like an overfull cup of water about to spill.

“The EMTs said she doesn’t have to go to the hospital, but it would be best if she took it easy for a few days,” Jess said. “I offered… for her to stay with me. If you also want…”

“I don’t want to intrude on your—it’s your space, um. I don’t want to be a third wheel.”

“You wouldn’t…”

Amy smiled softly. “We don’t want you to stay at a hotel, Luce. Or Mason’s new place.”

Mason, fuck, they had to tell him about all of this. “I wouldn’t… at least I don’t think I’d have to stay in either place,” she admitted. “Wyatt and Flynn offered to let me stay with them.”

Amy waggled her eyebrows and leered, then winced. “Ow, okay, facial expressions are limited for a bit.”

Lucy kissed her forehead. There was so much to do—report to Denise, put out an APB on Emma, double-check with Wyatt and Flynn that she could in fact stay with them, file reports, talk to Mason—but right now, she just wanted to hold onto her sister.

“You know what Mom said when you were born?” Lucy whispered.

“Ow, ow, ow, get this baby out of me?” Amy asked.

“No. She said you were going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.” Lucy swallowed. “Mom was… Mom was wrong about a lot of things. But she was right about that.” She brushed her sister’s hair back. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Ames.”

“Right back atcha,” Amy whispered.

Lucy squeezed Amy’s hand and held on tight. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the case was taken from the episode Boom (2x18).
> 
> Žao mi je = I'm sorry


	9. Chapter 9

Amy woke with a start.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and she groped for something to defend herself with without knowing why.

“Hey, hey, Ames, it’s just me.”

Jess wrapped her arms around her. Jess. It was all right, she wasn’t alone, she was safe.

Amy cuddled into Jess’s hold, closing her eyes. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re okay.” Jess’s fingers began to comb through her hair. “Maybe it would be a good idea to… to see someone about this.”

“Mm, what, like therapy?”

“Exactly like therapy.” Jess paused, the kind of pause that Amy had come to find meant Jess was weighing what she was going to say. “I got one, after my… after I lost the baby. I told Wyatt it was just for the divorce, and for what happened to Lorena and Iris, and it was, I talked about that too but… it really helped. To discuss it.”

“I’m sorry I found out the way that I did.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. I’m just… I wanted to tell you at some point but. I didn’t know how. We’re not even talking marriage yet, never mind kids, and it’s not fair to just dump all your trauma on your partner. I wanted to find a… a right time.”

“You know I don’t see you differently. I just know why you’re sad now, sometimes.”

Jess kissed the top of her head. “I know babe.”

“How did Wyatt take it?”

“Well. Better than I expected. He was really supportive.”

“He sounds like—from what you’ve told me about how he used to be, I mean—it sounds like he’s grown a lot.”

Jess sighed. “You know that stupid awful cliché about the girl changing the guy for the better? About how he meets her and she ‘heals’ him of whatever his problem is? PTSD or asshole behavior or criminal behavior or what-have-you?”

“Yeah?”

“There is a truth to that, underneath all the bullshit. If you find the right person… they don’t change you. Nobody can make you change. Nobody can make you become someone you don’t want to be. You have to do that yourself. You have to choose it. But the right person can inspire you to become better on your own. You want to become a better person so that you’re on their level. So that you can be equals in your relationship. Good people lift each other up.”

“That whole thing about judging a man by his friends. Judging him by the company he keeps.”

“Exactly. Flynn… Flynn had something that I didn’t. He made Wyatt want to be a better person. And no matter how much I loved Wyatt or how much Wyatt loved me, we brought out the worst in each other after a while. So clearly we weren’t meant to compliment each other in that way.”

“You make me want to be a better person.”

“I don’t see how you could be better than you already are.”

Amy sighed, reaching up and taking Jess’s hand, intertwining their fingers. “You’re the first relationship I’ve ever been serious about.”

Silence fell for a while, and then Jess said, to Amy’s surprise, “I feel like I failed you. I was here, instead of with you. You were here, you were staying at my place, my apartment, and she got you. And I came back here and I—I called Wyatt right away because I knew—I knew you wouldn’t have left at two in the damn morning without telling me. And I feel like… I should’ve had more security at the place or something. Better locks on the doors.”

“You didn’t fail me. What were you supposed to do, read Emma Whitmore’s mind and know she was going to come after me?”

“The woman she shot on the phone while talking to Lucy was a blonde medical student in her mid-twenties. You’re a blonde nurse in her late twenties, it’s not that hard to draw the connection. We should’ve—I should’ve—”

“No.” Amy propped herself up on her elbows and looked down into Jess’s face. “Don’t should all over yourself. The only one to blame here is Emma Whitmore. Okay? Nobody else. I love you and I’m not gonna lie here and listen to you beat yourself up over something that isn’t your fault.”

Jess stared up at her, then oh so gently tucked a lock of Amy’s hair behind her ear. “I love you.”

“Well, good. That’s kind of what you hope the other person will say to you when you confess your love to them.”

“Ah, yes, because the screaming orgasms and making you breakfast and moving in together weren’t a clue…”

“Fuck you, you are the actual worst.” Amy grinned down at her and settled back into Jess’s arms, proving the lie in her words. She kissed Jess’s neck.

“Yeah.” She could hear the smile in Jess’s voice. “I know.”

Amy slept through the rest of the night.

* * *

Flynn woke up feeling warm again, and silently cursed.

Lucy couldn’t stay on the couch forever, and this was only temporary, so Wyatt had moved into Flynn’s room and Lucy had moved into Wyatt’s room. Lucy had said she could buy them a second bed for Flynn’s room but this was supposed, ostensibly, to be temporary and both he and Wyatt had put their foot down on Lucy spending any money on them.

That meant he was sharing a bed with Wyatt.

Wyatt, who was a fucking octopus.

Luckily Wyatt was such a heavy sleeper and Flynn always got up before him, so he was able to avoid any awkwardness. They just… started out on opposite sides of the bed and then he’d wake up like this, his arm around Wyatt’s waist with Wyatt’s face pressed into his neck, their legs a tangle. It really didn’t help that it was the best damn sleep he’d been getting in… since… well.

Flynn reached up and softly pet through Wyatt’s hair, his other hand still loosely draped over Wyatt’s, where it had landed in sleep. God, it would be so easy to lean in a little, to press a kiss to Wyatt’s forehead, to stroke his fingertips along the back of Wyatt’s hand, to nudge their noses together and watch Wyatt’s eyes slowly open…

He drew away, gently easing himself out from under Wyatt, and got up to take a shower. Wyatt was obviously, painfully in love with Lucy. Flynn wasn’t going to set himself up for outright rejection.

Speaking of Lucy, she was already up when he went into the kitchen to make coffee. She was curled up on the sofa, staring at pages in front of her, scissors and tape on the coffee table.

“Editing?”

Lucy snorted, smiling. “Yeah. I’ve found it helps to… cut up pages and then tape them up together in different ways.”

“Is this for the first book?”

“No, the second. The first book’s already approved, it’s going to the printer right now. You’ll be getting your advanced copy soon.” Lucy paused. “Y’know, when you told me you read my books, I don't think it really sunk in for me until now.”

Flynn nearly choked on air. “Ah…”

Lucy gestured at the bookshelf, where all of her Kate Drummond books were on proud display. Their covers were worn, their pages dog-eared. Clearly well-used, well-loved.

Flynn ducked his head down and began fiddling with the coffee machine. “I, uh. Yeah. I was always a history geek. Specifically the early twentieth century. And like I said I read your books after… after I lost Lorena and Iris. They helped me.” He poured coffee for the three of them, putting hazelnut creamer in Wyatt’s and two sugars with a touch of milk into Lucy’s.

Lucy ran a hand through her hair, looking betrayed. “Yes, and you stood in line for me to sign your book once and I don't remember.”

“Yup.” Flynn walked over and passed Lucy her coffee, then stuck his head into his room, waving the coffee mug in the air.

On the bed, Wyatt stirred, sensing caffeine. Flynn grinned and went back to the living room, sitting down on the other end of the couch to sip his coffee. “You had to see hundreds of people that day. I couldn’t imagine you could remember anyone.”

“I try to, though,” Lucy said softly. She sounded genuinely upset.

“If it’s any consolation, you called me handsome.”

Lucy buried her face in her hands. “That makes it _worse_.”

Flynn wasn’t sure what to say to that. He wasn’t sure how to tell her _you said ‘hello handsome’ and I felt like I’d been hit by a truck only in a good way and I didn’t know what to do with that because I hadn’t even looked at a woman since Lorena died and I never looked at a woman after that until you waltzed into my precinct. _He didn’t know how he could say _your books were my lifeline. _He didn’t know how he could tell her _getting to know you was nothing like I thought it would be and so much better than I’d hoped._

Before he could say any of that, his phone rang.

Wyatt stumbled out of the bedroom, yawning, and Flynn answered the call with one hand while he got up and passed Wyatt his coffee with the other. “Flynn here.”

“Garcia Flynn?” It was a voice that Flynn vaguely recognized. “This is John Raglan. I was the detective assigned to your wife and child’s case.”

“John, hi.” Flynn’s body went tight and he found he couldn’t swallow. “How are you?”

“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Can you meet me for a coffee? No cops.”

“No cops?”

“It’s about the case, Flynn. There’s something I didn’t tell you. Something you need to know. Can you promise no cops?”

“I promise.” Flynn listened as Raglan rattled off the address, then hung up.

He turned to find Wyatt and Lucy watching him.

“It’s the detective who handled Lorena and Iris’s case. He wants me to meet him. Alone.”

* * *

Lucy shifted nervously next to Flynn in the booth. Wyatt was across the street in the Starbucks, but Raglan wanted them to meet him in a diner. Something about getting coffee in a proper mug instead of a cardboard cup. Wyatt, who would lie to your face about liking black coffee and then look you in the eye as he sipped his caramel macchiato with a double shot of cinnamon and two pumps of creamer, was perfectly content to set up shop in the chain store.

She didn’t like this. Wyatt didn’t like this. But Flynn was determined. Any information about his family was good information, now that he knew that there was more to their murder than just gang violence, wrong place at the wrong time, all the lies he’d been fed.

Lucy knew that part of it was her fault. She had put that parasite in Flynn’s mind. And she wished she could take it back—but at the same time she didn’t. She wanted the truth in her own life, no matter how painful it was. And she knew that Flynn was the same, deep down.

“What do you want?” Flynn asked, blunt and obviously not in the mood for pleasantries. “You said you had something about the deaths of my family. The deaths that you wrote off as random gang violence.”

“I did what I was told,” Raglan replied. He sighed, rubbing his hands against the warm mug of coffee. “I was going to keep doing what I was told. But I just spoke to the doctor and he gave me a… a diagnosis. Lymphoma. I have six months. At the most.” He gave a smile that was more like a wince.

Raglan, Lucy thought idly, looked like a sad man. He reminded her somehow of Falstaff, or one of Richard III’s advisors. A friend to the title character in a Shakespearean history play, the friend who was left behind.

“About six months ago,” Raglan went on, “you killed a hitman named Dick Coonan. It was a big deal. People noticed.”

Flynn leaned forward, elbows on the table. “What people. What is going on, and what happened to my family.”

Raglan shook his head. “You have to understand, this didn’t start with your wife. This started long before that and she… wandered into the web. Nineteen years ago I made a bad mistake and that started the dominos falling. And one of them was your wife and da…”

A shot rang out and Lucy screamed as Flynn yanked her to the floor, diving for cover. People around them all screamed out. “Get away from the windows!” Flynn yelled. “Get away!”

Red was on Flynn’s shirt, red—oh no, no— “Garcia!”

“I’m fine, I’m not hit, I’m fine!”

Lucy realized what that meant and scrambled across the floor. “Raglan!” She pressed her hands to his chest as Flynn dialed 9-1-1. “John!”

Blood seeped out between her fingers as Raglan’s body went still. A noise welled up in her throat as she realized that he was dead, dead underneath her fingers, and then Wyatt was all but kicking down the diner’s front door and the world started moving again.

* * *

Denise was not pleased about this, to say the least. Flynn grimaced down at the blood on his sweater. He’d liked this one, dammit, it was a nice oatmeal color and Lucy had said she liked it because it ‘looked soft’ and Wyatt said he liked it because it was an actual color, Flynn, and no, dark red didn’t count as a color, why was his two-thirds of his wardrobe black?

“Don’t tell me you didn’t come here without any backup,” Denise said as Jiya began her work on the scene as medical examiner. Flynn would’ve been lying if he said it didn’t make him—make him angry, make him furious, to know that he was about to get more information on Lorena and Iris’s deaths and that chance had been snatched from him.

“He had backup,” Wyatt said. “I was right outside.”

Denise gave Wyatt a skeptical look. Wyatt shrugged, looking adorable and puppylike, wearing one of his good Texan boy smiles like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

“You’re going to let us work this case,” Flynn said.

Denise didn’t snort because Denise wouldn’t do something so undignified, but it was a near thing. “You’re too close to this. It’s written all over your face.”

“The last time I was out of the loop on this case, the detective in charge apparently participated in covering up evidence related to it. Now he’s dead, and we’re out of leads.” He knew he was growling, but he somehow couldn’t stop himself. “Put me on this case.”

Rufus jogged up. “We figured out the trajectory of the sniper, tracked it to a building across the street, fourth floor.”

“Check in with the neighbors to see if anyone was hanging around Raglan’s lately,” Denise said. “Whoever it was must’ve tracked him to the diner.”

Rufus nodded and headed off.

“Let me do this, Denise, please,” Flynn pleaded. He hated pleading. But he’d fucking do it if it got him this case. Nobody else should be in charge of this. This was his family. He should be avenging them, finding justice for them, not anyone else. His girls deserved nothing less.

Denise stared at him for a moment, lips pressed together. “All right. But you are on thin ice, Flynn.”

He nodded. He could work with thin ice.

* * *

Wyatt’s heart wouldn’t stop racing in his chest. “Could we go back to the good old days where you two weren’t constantly in danger or nearly dying constantly?” he asked Lucy, who was standing to the side wrapped in a jacket while Flynn and Denise had their stare-down.

Lucy nodded, but her eyes were oddly bright and she didn’t say anything. A quiet Lucy, Wyatt had found, was not a good thing unless she had her laptop in front of her and was writing.

“You okay?”

Lucy nodded.

“It’s different when it’s right in front of you, I know. You did whatever you could, Lucy. It’s not your fault.”

She nodded again.

“Hey.” He gently elbowed her. “What’s on your mind? Dollar for your thoughts?”

“The phrase is a penny.”

“Yeah, but I had to adjust for inflation.”

Lucy smiled at that, but the smile quickly disappeared. “I just… the shot rang out, and at first I didn’t… I didn’t see… the blood, it sprayed onto Flynn’s sweater. So I saw it on Flynn and at first I thought—I thought he’d been shot.”

Wyatt’s throat went dry. “Yeah.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, I… it’s rough. But he’s okay, Lucy.”

She shook her head, but leaned into him all the same. “But whoever was after Raglan—they’ll be after him next, won’t they? If he keeps investigating. Whoever wants this covered up… they won’t stop here. They’ll take Flynn.”

“They won’t.” Wyatt squeezed her. “We won’t let them. That’s our job right now, okay? Keep Flynn off the deep end. Keep him safe.”

Lucy nodded. “Should we… should we tell him?”

Wyatt knew what she meant. “Why?”

Lucy shrugged. “I thought he was shot, Wyatt. And I hadn’t—he didn’t know.”

Wyatt sighed. “But why would we be telling him? So that we can feel better? He doesn’t need that, not right now. If you’re going to tell someone you have… feelings for them… you have to make sure it’s about them, and not just about you. I made that mistake a lot with Jess. My feelings—sharing those feelings—getting it off my chest, that was more important to me than anything else. Even when I’d tell her things like _you don’t have to say it back_, or whatever, it wasn’t really about her. It was about me. I won’t do that to Flynn. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Lucy leaned into him a little harder. “You’re right. I don’t know what it would help for him to know. He’s… he’s still wrapped up in them.”

“Yeah. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Lucy smiled sadly up at him. “Yeah. It fucking sucks.”

Well, at least they weren’t alone in their feelings.

* * *

It looked like Raglan had been a real loner since the death of his wife last year. “From breast cancer,” Gary McAllister explained when they brought him into the precinct.

McAllister was Raglan’s old classmate from the police academy and the one person who would come to see him reliably. The neighbors pointed him out and so they brought him in for questioning.

“It was a long hard slog, and she passed away last year.” McAllister shook his head sadly. “John wasn’t the same after that.”

“He said that he was diagnosed with lymphoma,” Flynn said, sitting on the couch across from McAllister, Wyatt next to him. Lucy was curled up on the other chair, taking notes. “He told us his doctor gave him six months to live.”

“He never said anything to me.” McAllister looked stricken. “I wish he had. That was John, he always carried his stuff on his own. Never wanted to burden others with his problems.”

“We were meeting with him because he was telling us about a case.” The words seemed to stick in Flynn’s throat and he forced himself to soldier forward. “A case that took place in Washington Heights, where my wife and my daughter were murdered. He was telling us how… how that case was related to another case he was working on nineteen years ago. Do you know anything about that?”

“Nineteen years ago? Shit, we would’ve been just out of the academy then.”

“Was there anything… unusual that went on or…?”

“Well, Raglan was hard up for money,” McAllister admitted. “Back in that day, we were trying to clean up the streets and were going up against a pretty heavy hitter—this drug lord named Vulcan Simmons. Suddenly, Raglan wasn’t hard up for money anymore. Raglan was doing patrols back then and there was a rumor for a while that he was running drugs for Simmons, hiding them in his patrol car.”

“Did you ever confront him about these rumors?”

“He was my friend,” McAllister said.

“Right.” Flynn couldn’t keep the bitter smirk off his face. “The whole no snitching, cops stick together bullshit routine.”

McAllister shrugged. “Call it what you will.”

* * *

Wyatt didn’t like Vulcan Simmons the moment he walked into the precinct. “The guy looks like a cat that just ate a canary.”

“Make that ten canaries,” Lucy murmured, arms folded. “Why would Simmons want to kill Lorena?”

Wyatt opened his mouth to explain, but Flynn cut in, and Wyatt jumped. He hadn’t heard Flynn walk up behind them. “Lorena was working on a campaign called ‘Take Back the Streets’,” Flynn said. “It was a campaign to rehabilitate drug users and treat addiction like a disease, rather than simply arresting drug users. If she was taking customers away from Simmons…”

Lucy nodded, two spots of color high up on her cheeks.

Denise walked up. “I’ve put Simmons in the interrogation room. I’m going to let you two take a crack at him, but I’m going to be watching you in the observation room. Lucy?”

Lucy looked up at her, eyes going round.

“You’re going to be with me.”

“But I always sit with them in—”

Denise shook her head. “I don’t want you anywhere near Simmons.” She paused. “Or rather, I don’t want Simmons anywhere near you.”

…oh. Wyatt glanced at Flynn and saw a flicker of anger across Flynn’s face. Wyatt understood. His own stomach was going tight at the implication. Lucy was always going to be safe, and if this was the kind of guy who’d see a woman in the room and target her, Wyatt didn’t want Lucy within ten feet of him.

“Keep your heads on,” Denise warned, speaking to all of them but looking at Flynn. “Understood?”

Flynn nodded tightly. Wyatt wanted to reach out, to take his hand or grasp his shoulder, something, but he was pretty sure Flynn would just shake him off if he tried. Instead he followed Flynn quietly into the interrogation room.

“Vulcan Simmons.” Flynn dropped the files they had on Simmons down onto the table as he sauntered into the room, Simmons already sitting across from them, his back to the two-way mirror. “Where’d your mother get that name, a pulp fiction novel?”

Simmons looked like he had just heard a hilarious and dirty joke and he couldn’t wait to share it with the class. “Am I being detained for any real reason?”

Flynn sat down in one of the chairs. Wyatt took the other one. Could this be the man who had ordered the death of his sister? His niece? Could they really be about to reach the end of the trail?

And if they did, once they got out the other side—how would Flynn take it? What would he do, who would he be, once he no longer had this case consuming him?

“Nineteen years ago, a beat cop by the name of John Raglan was hard up for money. And then he wasn’t. His patrol was in your neighborhood. It’s easy to convince a cop who needs money to smuggle drugs in his car. Who’s going to check him?” Flynn leaned his elbows on the table. “And then, years later, a lawyer comes sniffing around. Lorena Flynn.”

“Lorena… you know I thought your last name was familiar.” Simmons chuckled, a sound that made everything in Wyatt stand on end, a sound that made him want to bare his teeth and growl. “She was a pretty little thing. Another educated white person coming down from high on top her pedestal to try and fix us poor unfortunates.”

Flynn’s jaw clenched. There was a dangerous light in his eyes and Wyatt flinched. Simmons was baiting him and Flynn was falling for it, hit in his weak spot. “She was doing a program, working with other lawyers and with case workers to rehabilitate drug users, attack the drug problem from a new angle. That wasn’t good for your business, so you took matters into your own hands. And you made sure that your old buddy Raglan was assigned to the case.”

Simmons leaned back in his chair like it was a leather armchair. “That woman goes down to the zoo and thinks that she can leave unscathed? We showed her, and all those people like her, what happens when they try and come mess with the jungle without knowing the rules.”

Flynn had a tick in his jaw and Wyatt was feeling pretty fucking pissed off too, both on principle and on behalf of his sister, this was his goddamn _sister _they were talking about, but he could sense that his anger was nothing compared to what Flynn was feeling in that moment.

Simmons’ smirk was slow. “Someone should have told her not to tease or feed the animals.”

Flynn snapped, launching himself forward, grabbing Simmons by the front of his shirt and hauling him bodily up out of the chair, slamming him back into the double-sided glass so hard that it cracked like a spiderweb, nearly shattering completely.

“Flynn!” Wyatt grabbed onto his arm, tugging. It was like he was trying to move a steel rod. “Don’t.”

For once, Flynn didn’t listen to him, getting right up in Simmons’ face. “You say one more word, _one more word_—”

The door was shoved open as Rufus and Jess entered, both yanking Flynn back. Simmons laughed. “You must’ve married her for her looks, because nobody with brains—”

Flynn tried to lunge forward but Rufus and Jess held him back, both yelling for Flynn to cool it. Wyatt felt rage boiling in him—for his sister, for his niece, for Flynn—and before he could even think to put a cap on it, he was swinging, clocking Simmons right across the face.

Rufus let go of Flynn and yanked Wyatt back with surprising strength, and Wyatt thought, oh yeah, Rufus was jacked. He somehow always forgot that. “Get it together, what are you, rookies!?” Jess snapped, and then both he and Flynn were being shoved out the door while Rufus was warning Simmons to back the fuck down.

Denise was already outside, having exited the observation room. “I don’t think I even have to say it out loud, but for the record: you’re both off the case. Rufus and Jess will handle it from here.”

Flynn gave Denise a glare of genuine hatred and shoved past her. Wyatt looked at her, realized he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t land him in even more hot water, and walked around her, hurrying after Flynn.

“Hey.” He grabbed Flynn by the shoulder.

Flynn shrugged him off. “Don’t.”

“I just—”

“If you say anything, Wyatt, if you say one word, I’m going to punch a hole in this wall.”

Wyatt put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, then fell silently into step beside Flynn.

Flynn glanced at him, then started walking towards the elevator that led out of the precinct. Wyatt followed as Flynn got in, rode the elevator, and walked out of the precinct.

“You think you can’t leave me alone right now?” Flynn asked. His jaw was a little less tense but that angry, dangerous light was still in his eyes.

“Yes,” Wyatt said bluntly.

Flynn paused, staring out at the street. I want this over.”

“I know.”

Flynn reached out without looking at him, his hand falling to cup the back of Wyatt’s neck, his thumb pressing down right behind Wyatt’s ear. Wyatt felt all the air go out of the space. “You might have messed up with Jess, but you’re far too patient with me, Wyatt.”

“Nah.” Wyatt swallowed. “They’re my family too. I want to see them avenged. And you’re—you’re, um, you’re good.”

Their phones vibrated. Wyatt checked his and saw it was a message from Denise. _Go home._

Well. That was that, then.

* * *

Lucy organized the case files, checking her notes. They’d had to let Simmons go thanks to the force Wyatt and Flynn had shown, and it was clear to her that they weren’t going to get a confession out of Simmons anyway. He had been in there just to rile Flynn and Wyatt up, to have his fun with them like it was a sport. If they were going to catch him out, they would need proof.

“Well, well, well, look who’s still here.”

Lucy looked up, smiling as Mason approached. “Hey, you here to see Rufus?”

“To see you, actually, my dear. I was hoping I could persuade you to come with me out to dinner.”

She grimaced. “Ah, I’d love to, but I have…”

“…a case.” Mason gave a small, sad smile. “Yes. Rufus told me that there’s been a development in the Flynn deaths.” He paused, and Lucy could feel him weighing whether or not he should say his next thought. “I… also heard about Raglan’s death. That the sniper hit him right in front of you.”

“Yes.” Lucy set her notes down and hoped her voice would remain steady. “A sniper got him before he could tell Flynn and I what he’d called us to say. So now we’re almost at a dead end again.”

Mason nodded, but Lucy could see he still had more that was on his mind. “What is it?”

Mason took Wyatt’s chair, sitting down next to her. “What if it had been you?”

Lucy blinked. “But it wasn’t me. The sniper wasn’t after me, they were after Raglan for what he was about to tell Flynn.”

“But some day they might be after you, for what you know. For working with them.” Mason took her hands. “Lucy. Think about the danger that you’re putting yourself in. The danger you’ve already been in. What if you kick a hornet’s nest that you can’t dodge in time?”

“I get that you’re concerned, Mason, but I have to be here.”

“Why?” Mason challenged. “You wrote a whole successful novel series before them and you didn’t need to be in a police station every day to do it.”

“It’s not about the books anymore,” Lucy replied, yanking her hands back. The words were out of here before she could stop them, but now that they were out… well, Mason and everyone else probably knew it anyway. At least now she was owning it. “I can’t leave them, Connor. Not right now that they’re… they need someone to help them. Keep them… grounded.”

“You don’t even know that you can do that,” Mason replied. “I just—I’m scared for you, Lucy. Please. If nothing else, for my peace of mind. Consider sitting this out. Or consider taking a break in general. We can go on a trip, the two of us, we haven’t done that in some time. A writer’s retreat, perhaps.”

Lucy sighed. “I can’t. I could lie to you and say I’ll consider it, but I think you would know I was lying… and I don’t want to lie to you. I can’t leave them. Because I… I don’t want to leave them.”

Mason stared at her for a long moment, looking deeply, terribly sad. “I thought you might say as much,” he said, his voice heavy. He stood up. “I’m going to go talk to Rufus.”

“About his resignation?”

Mason curled up the corner of his mouth in an almost-smile. “You’ll have to ask Rufus about that. You’re not the only one with big decisions to make.”

He ruffled her hair as he walked past her, further into the precinct.

Lucy looked down at her hands. _I can’t leave them because I don’t want to leave them. _She had said it out loud, now. There was no going back.

* * *

Jess and Rufus watched the security footage of the building that the sniper had gone into. There was just one camera with the good angle, but everyone who went through the lobby to get into the higher floors had to have a keycard. The guy would’ve had to have a briefcase of some kind to hide the gun parts that he would then assemble into his sniper rifle, so they could narrow it down to the people who…

Rufus swore as a man carrying a suitcase, with his back carefully angled to the camera, bumped into a woman who was leaving the building, sending her crashing to the floor. The camera had no sound, but he probably said something to her as he helped her back up, apologizing maybe—as his other hand neatly swiped her keycard.

“There goes that angle,” Jess groaned.

Rufus watched as the man grabbed the woman’s bare arm to help her back up to her feet. “Maybe not. See if we can get an I.D. on this woman.”

“Why? He didn’t touch anything we can lift prints from.”

“Yeah, he did.” Rufus tapped the screen. “Her arm.”

* * *

Wyatt and Flynn were making dinner when she got back to the apartment. She set her notes aside and took in the tense line of Flynn’s back, his stooped shoulders, and how quiet Wyatt was being. She walked over. “Hi.”

Wyatt gave her a small smile and kept chopping vegetables. Flynn paused. “Hi.”

Lucy wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, but she couldn’t just stand there watching the men she loved be miserable. She put her hand on Flynn’s wrist, stilling his movements. “Come here.”

She tugged until Flynn turned and she wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him tightly. Flynn went stiff, and she realized that this was the first time they had touched like this without it being in the middle of a crisis, without one of them coming out of the tail end of a near-death experience. She started to pull back, scared that she was wrong—and Flynn’s arms tightened around her suddenly, holding her in return.

Lucy reached out towards Wyatt. “You too.” She found his hand and pulled him in, adding him to the mix, the three of them holding on tightly to one another. Wyatt rested his head on Flynn’s shoulder, his arm wrapping around Lucy’s back, and she buried herself against them, holding on until she felt the tension begin to bleed from them.

She pulled back at last and saw that Flynn’s eyes were a bit wet. “Let me do dinner.”

“No offense, Lucy, but even I had one hand tied behind my back I’d be a better option for dinner,” Flynn replied, laughing a little.

“Fine.” Lucy wanted to reach up and run her fingers through his hair, cup his cheek, so badly that she ached all over with it. “I’ll get us water.”

She squeezed Wyatt’s hand as she walked past him, and she thought that perhaps Flynn noticed it, but when she turned to look properly, he was focused back on the stove.

Dinner was a silent affair, but not uncomfortable. More like the two men just had too much on their minds to really make an effort talking about anything else. Lucy cleared the plates and did the dishes, insisting when they tried to protest. They all took care of each other, here. They’d looked after her with Emma, and her mother, and her broken leg. Now it was her turn to take care of them.

“I want to show you something,” Flynn said, after she’d finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher. “If you’ll follow me.”

He led her into the bedroom that he was currently sharing with Wyatt, and pulled open the wooden blinds on a window. That window was always closed—Lucy had noticed that when she’d moved in, even though she’d never set foot in Flynn’s room—and the blinds were the kind that opened like cupboard doors.

On the inside, both on the blinds and the window itself, were photos. Notes. Pieces of paper.

“It’s a murder board,” Lucy whispered.

Flynn nodded. “I started it after you… after you looked into Lorena and Iris’s case. I didn’t tell anyone about it at first. I told Wyatt later. And now—now you know. Just you two.” He tapped a particular note. “Right before Lorena died, she requested a case file. The file’s since gone missing so I thought… that was why she was murdered. It was the legal case she was working on. Now I don’t know.”

Lucy looped her arm through his, leaning her head on his bicep. She wasn’t quite tall enough to reach his shoulder. “Is there anything else of hers we could go through? Anything might help us right now, even something that you might think was inconsequential to the case.”

Flynn looked down at her, and oh, he looked so weary. “Sure. I have some boxes.”

“How do you sleep at night?” Lucy whispered, the question sliding out before she could stop it. “With… with this big unanswered question?”

Flynn gave her a tiny, sardonic smile. “You think I sleep at night?”

He pulled away from her and went to his closet. “Boxes are in here. Might as well get started.”

* * *

Flynn found himself… surprised by how he felt as he went through Lorena’s old papers and photos. He had known that it would hurt, a bit. He had known that it would also make him happy in a way, reminding him of better times and of this woman that he loved, what a soft, strong presence she had been in his life.

There were some of Iris’s things in here, too. Flynn set those gently aside. They didn’t have anything to do with the case.

But he hadn’t known that he would want to share these things with Lucy. Wyatt had helped him pack them up, but he hadn’t really gotten a whole lot of explanation. Flynn had told him that Wyatt could go through the boxes whenever he wanted, to get to know his sister, but he wasn’t sure if Wyatt ever had. Now the both of them were listening with rapt attention as he shared little snippets of his family with them.

He had been unfair, to Wyatt, in a way. Drowning in his grief too much to share his family, Wyatt’s family, with him. Wyatt deserved better. He deserved to know his sister.

“These are adorable,” Lucy said, flipping through some pictures of Lorena with Iris at the ice rink. She was sitting in the middle of the couch, her legs tucked underneath her, in between Flynn who was sitting with one leg hooked over the arm of the couch and Wyatt who was sprawled out completely.

“Hmm?” Flynn took a look. “Ah. Yeah. Lorena loved ice skating. I was always clumsy.”

“I would pay money to see that,” Wyatt murmured.

Lucy picked up the negatives, holding them up to the light, squinting. “Huh.”

“…what?”

Lucy quickly flipped through the photos, counting under her breath, then held up the negatives again, counting them. “There’s twenty negatives on this. But only sixteen photos. Four of these negatives weren’t turned into photos.”

“What are they pictures of?” Wyatt asked.

Lucy squinted. “They look like… an alley?”

Flynn’s heart gave an odd lurch and he took the negatives from Lucy, staring at them. “I recognize this alley.” He thought he might throw up. It was like someone had punched him in the stomach. “That was where Lorena and Iris were killed.”

“What was she doing taking pictures of the place?” Lucy asked, as Wyatt took the developed pictures from her.

“These were developed a week before they died.” Wyatt set the photos down. “What was she doing in the alley a week before their deaths?”

“I always thought that they were killed there because it was… convenient. That was where Coonan found them. But she was—” It was hard to swallow, hard to breathe. “It was deliberate. She was here for a reason. A reason she never told me about.”

Lucy put a hand on his arm. “She was probably going to tell you, if she felt it was something you needed to know. You didn’t discuss all your murder cases with her. Same with this, if it was something she was working on.”

“Maybe you were right,” Wyatt said. “Maybe this was tied to that missing case file of hers after all.”

Flynn felt like there was no air in the room. “Right. Let’s look into that.” He was half elated, finding another clue. Half terrified as to what it would reveal. And another, tiny, dark kernel of him was furious with himself for not looking through Lorena’s things earlier. If he’d found these negatives earlier…

“Garcia.”

He turned and looked at Lucy, her face soft and open. “Let’s go solve this. Let’s find their killer.”

Flynn looked at Wyatt, who nodded. All right. Time to find out what had happened in that alley.

* * *

Jiya complained the entire time. Jess rolled her eyes. “You get fingerprints off of dead bodies all the time, how is this any different?”

“You’re lucky she hadn’t taken a shower yet, that’s all,” Jiya grumbled, running the print she’d gotten off the woman’s arm. “I’ve never had to get a print off of a living person before, this is ridiculous. It’s beneath my dignity.”

“Jiya, again, I will point out that we deal with dead bodies, nothing is beneath our dignity.”

Jiya waved a hand at Jess and scrolled through the database. “Okay, this is weird.”

“What?” Jess braced a hand on the back of Jiya’s chair, leaning over her shoulder.

“I love how you give me space and don’t backseat drive,” Jiya muttered. “Okay, so this print apparently belongs to a man named John Lockwood. But here’s the thing. His record is clean. I mean, absolutely clean. Nothing, not even a parking ticket.”

“You think that his record was scrubbed?” Jess asked, her blood spiking.

“No.” Jiya scrolled further. “His records only go back two years.”

Jess knew what that meant. “Can you get an address for him?”

“I can try.”

Lockwood was apparently staying at a hotel in Midtown. When Jess got there, the place was empty of any person, but equipment was still everywhere. They must’ve just missed him.

The things there confirmed what she’d suspected: guns, surveillance kits, knives, DNA kits, the works. This Lockwood person, or whatever his real name was, was a hitman.

“Search the place,” she ordered. “Top to bottom.” She walked over to the coffee table to inspect all the supplies laid out on it. There were several photographs, too, probably of Raglan…

Jess paused.

These weren’t photographs of Raglan.

These were photographs of Flynn.

* * *

Lucy listened from the couch as Wyatt paced up and down the apartment living room with his phone, getting updates from Jess. “Lockwood’s apartment had this custom anti-anxiety med in it,” Wyatt relayed from Jess. “Snipers will use them to slow down their heartbeats so they can fire in between, makes for better firing. Jess found the drug dealer, apparently he’s some rich preppy asshole. Anyway he sold them to Jolene, a regular. All he knows is she lives in Brooklyn. Jess is running a search now to try and find her.”

Jess said something else and Wyatt went back to listening. Flynn touched her shoulder and Lucy turned around. “Hey.”

Flynn passed her a beer, then sat next to her. “Hey.” They’d been watching old moves on the Turner Classics channel. “Lucy… there’s something I need you to do.”

Lucy nodded. “Name it.”

Flynn took a deep breath. “Go live with Amy and Jess. Or Mason. Get out of this mess.”

“What?” Lucy shook her head. “No.” She leaned forward. “I’m not leaving you two in this. Wherever you go, I’m going. This is how it is. We’re partners.”

Flynn looked like he was about to say something else, his tongue swiping over his bottom lip in that way it got when he was considering what he was about to say. Lucy had noted that detail long ago, but she hadn’t put it into the book. There were a lot of things about Wyatt and Flynn that she was putting into the book: Flynn’s acerbic wit, his height, his habit of bracing his hands vertically in the air like he was holding an invisible box as his way of emphasizing a point he was making, and Wyatt’s way of tugging on his earlobe when he was nervous, his slightly buck teeth showing when he smiled, his love of spy films.

But there were other things, intimate things, that would never go into the books. She wasn’t going to share those with the world. Her characters were inspired by Flynn and Wyatt but they weren’t the same, they were still her creations, they were still fictional. And the rest of the world didn’t get to know all those little details. Those were for her alone, selfish though it might be. She felt like a dragon, hoarding these little pieces of them.

Before Flynn could say anything, though, Wyatt got off the phone. “Jess got the info on the alley. Apparently that used to be a back alley to a Mafia-owned club. A murder took place there—guess when.”

Lucy’s mind leapt to the conclusion. “Nineteen years ago.”

Wyatt grinned at her. “Yeah. Bob Armond, he was an undercover FBI agent working in the mafia. Joe Bulgatti was the guy arrested for it, he was an enforcer, pretty high up in the family.”

“So Joe was silencing Bob?”

“Guess so. But here’s the kicker—guess who made the arrest.” Wyatt’s grin grew. “Guess!”

Flynn gave him a look of such fond indulgence that Lucy wanted to scream. “John Raglan.”

Wyatt nodded. “You bet your ass.”

* * *

Joe Bulgatti wasn’t how Flynn expected.

He was quiet, polite, a little pudgy. Spoke with just a hint of that classic mafioso accent that Hollywood made so famous.

“I gotta say, it’s not every day that you get a famous author in here,” he said when Lucy introduced herself. Wyatt had stayed home to cover for them if Denise called.

Bulgatti shook Lucy’s hand, told her he loved her books, expressed interest in her new series. Lucy was smiling and blushing, and Flynn couldn’t bring himself to hate the guy because ever since Emma, Lucy hadn’t been happy with her writing at all. She’d been cutting up and rearranging pages constantly. She had glared at Flynn’s collection of Kate Drummond books. She avoided her editor, her agent, her manager. She didn’t want to talk about her stories.

It broke Flynn’s heart.

He outlined why they were here to Bulgatti. When he finished, Bulgatti shook his head. “You’re not here because of a nineteen-year-old case.”

Flynn blinked. He was very much here because of a nineteen-year-old case.

Bulgatti gave a small, sad smile. “You’re here because of Lorena.”

Flynn’s heart turned over.

“She came here,” Bulgatti explained. “I knew you were her husband the minute I heard your name. She talked about you all the time. Promised me there were cops like you in the world and that they weren’t all bad.”

“She came to see you?” He felt starving, a wolf fed breadcrumbs, desperate for any more information on Lorena, to glimpse her through the veil.

“Oh yeah. I wrote to her, and other lawyers, trying to get my case overturned. None of them wrote back except for her. She came in here… it was like looking at an angel. She didn’t care that I was a bad guy. That I’d done all this shit.”

“The only thing Lorena cared about was the truth.” He’d heard her say that a million times. _The truth is all that matters, Garcia. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Isn’t that the ultimate principle? Isn’t that all we have at the end of the day?_

Bulgatti nodded. “She was a singular woman. She promised me she’d make sure my case was looked at again. Said she was requesting the case file. And then—then I heard the news. About her. And your little girl.” He shook his head. “It’s not right, detective. Your wife was a good woman. And the child… no. It’s not right.”

Flynn didn’t know what to say to that. He had heard many condolences over the years and yet, somehow, this one was making his chest tight, his eyes hot.

“Tell us about the crime that Lorena was looking into for you,” Lucy said.

Bulgatti looked at her. “None of us knew Armond was FBI. In fact he wasn’t even the target. I was. Armond wasn’t supposed to be there. Back in the day, I was pretty high up, y’know, pretty important. So one night, I go out back behind the club for a smoke, and three guys in ski masks jump out of a car, try and kidnap me. There was this big kidnapping ring going on, targeting everyone from all the families. It even caused a temporary truce in the mafia. We all had bigger problems, these outsiders coming after us.

“These guys jumped me, and Armond—he’d followed me. Bob. He was a good guy, y’know?” Bulgatti sighed. “A real good guy. I was mafia and he was FBI, he had no reason to stick his neck out for me. But he jumped in there. Things got bad, one of the guys in ski masks fired, shot Armond dead.

“Next thing I know, this detective is arresting me. Says I killed Bob, and he can place me in the alley at the time. And that was when I knew who those guys were—but I didn’t say nothing, because how do you out a cop to a cop? None of the other police would’ve listened to me.”

“Hold on,” Flynn said. “How did you know that the guy arresting you was one of the kidnappers?”

Bulgatti gave him a look of steel, and Flynn saw underneath the old man a glimpse of the powerful mafia enforcer he had once been. “It was a blind alley, detective. There was no way any other witness could’ve seen what happened. The only people in that alley were Bob Armond, me, and the three men who tried to kidnap me. You do the math.”

“And who arrested you?” Lucy pressed.

Bulgatti looked back at her. “A guy by the name of John Raglan.”

Flynn swore violently in Croatian, the words pressed out through gritted teeth. His heart was pounding in his ears. He’d had the man right in front of him, one of the men responsible for the death of his family, and he hadn’t known. All these years, and he hadn’t known.

Bulgatti tipped his head at him. “Keeping my mouth shut about that all this time is the only way nobody’s come after me with a spoon shank. I don’t mean any disrespect to you, detective, but I’ll be frank: the worst killers out there are the ones with badges.”

Flynn couldn’t agree more, because if he’d had John Raglan in front of him right then, he would’ve proven himself to be the worst killer of them all.

* * *

Someone backed Raglan up on Bulgatti’s story, at least according to the police report: Gary McAllister.

Wyatt watched as McAllister was escorted to the interrogation room while Denise lectured Flynn about just what she’d meant when she’d said he was ‘off the damn case’.

“The cops knew if Bulgatti’s case got overturned, they’d be exposed,” Lucy whispered, leaning back against Wyatt and Flynn’s shared desk, her arms folded. “So they paid Coonan to kill Lorena and the rest of her team involved in trying to get Bulgatti’s case looked at, and they made his case file disappear.”

“Cops starting a rogue kidnapping ring,” Wyatt observed. “No wonder Rufus wants to quit.”

Flynn and Denise had escalated to yelling at each other. Lucy winced.

“How was he when he heard the news?” Wyatt asked.

“He’s… hanging in there.”

Rufus walked up. “Okay, we narrowed the search down to two Jolenes: Jolene Granger and Jolene Lawrence. I figure Jess and I will take Lawrence, you guys take Granger?”

Wyatt nodded towards the interrogation room. “We gotta take McAllister. If we’re still in here by the time you finish with Lawrence, feel free to go after Granger. Flynn and the captain might, uh, be a while.”

Flynn said something loud and probably insulting in Croatian, which prompted Denise to say something passive-aggressively in Hindi. Lucy winced again.

“Cool, cool, cool.” Rufus nodded, backing away. “I’ll just find an excuse to take the long route to both women, take our time, meander, all that.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Rufus saluted and headed out.

The door to the captain’s office was opened with firm force and Denise exited, followed by Flynn. “You are on the shortest leash known to man,” she warned him.

“Didn’t even give me a safe word,” Flynn sassed under his breath.

Denise gave him a glare that could’ve melted a wall of concrete, and then passed him to go into the observation room.

Flynn looked at Lucy and Wyatt. “Want to join?” he asked, clearly aiming for sarcastically upbeat but instead just sounding weary.

Wyatt wondered, for a wild moment, if when Hercules switched places with Atlas holding up the sky, he hadn’t been tempted to keep holding it for eternity, just because of the relief on Atlas’s face when he found that he was free of the weight. But Wyatt couldn’t carry this weight for Flynn, and he didn’t know how to relieve him of it.

Instead he just said, “of course.” Lucy nodded.

McAllister glared defiantly at them as they entered. “So now we know why you were the only friend who still went and saw Raglan even after everyone else left him alone,” Flynn said. “You were his buddy back in the day when you were kidnapping people.”

“You mean when we were doing what we had to for our city,” McAllister replied. “You don’t get it, you don’t know what it was like on the streets back then. It was anarchy. We could barely make a dent in the mafia. They weren’t scared of us. They did whatever they pleased. Someone had to do the right thing.”

“Kidnapping people for ransom was right!?” Lucy said, sounding outraged and disbelieving.

“We put the fear of God into them!” McAllister yelled, jabbing his finger into the tabletop. “All of the mobsters knew the name of Rittenhouse. They knew they didn’t mess with us. All they cared about was their money and their power, so, we took that away from them. We would take ‘em, and if they didn’t pay the ransom, we’d show them real fear. They’d never be back on the streets again.”

“Rittenhouse?” Flynn said, right as Lucy said, “You became just as bad as what you hated.”

“Listen here, little lady,” McAllister started.

Flynn cut him off, slamming his fist into the table. “What is Rittenhouse!”

McAllister looked back at him. “This is so much bigger than you realize, Detective Flynn. You woke the dragon.”

Flynn braced his hands on the table and leaned in. “I _am _the dragon.”

Wyatt’s phone started buzzing.

“Now answer me—what. Is. Rittenhouse.”

Wyatt slipped outside of the room, excusing himself. It was Rufus. “Hey, what’d you find?”

“Jolene Lawrence is a lovely woman, definitely not a drug addict. Jolene Granger…” Rufus sighed. “She was strangled. We found her hogtied on the floor of her living room.”

“Fuck.” Poor woman.

* * *

Rufus nodded, then realized Wyatt couldn’t see him. “Yeah. I’m in the stairwell with Jess, we wanted to check and see if Lockwood came out the back, but there’s nothing. I’m calling it in.”

“Yeah, good.”

Jess leaned over the railing, looking up. “Hey, Rufus, did you see—”

From up above, a black-gloved hand dropped something down, down, down, until it landed with a dull _thunk_ right next to them on the landing.

Jess recognized it first. “Grenade!” she screamed, leaping forward and tackling Rufus to the ground right before a flash went off, blinding him, and his ears began to ring.

* * *

Lucy looked up as Wyatt threw the interrogation door open. “We gotta go,” he said. “We gotta go right now.”

When they got to the scene, there was the dead woman, and a flash grenade, but no sign of Rufus and Jess.

“Someone must’ve followed them,” Flynn growled. “Lockwood.”

“And whoever he’s working with,” Wyatt added. “This… Rittenhouse.”

“All that McAllister would tell us was that it started as a kidnapping ring between the three of them,” Lucy said to Wyatt, explaining what he’d missed. “But that it grew… bigger. He seemed paranoid.”

Lucy entered Jolene Granger’s apartment, trying to ignore the body on the floor. Jiya was doing her best to examine it, but her hands were shaking. “You okay?”

“My boyfriend just went missing,” Jiya hissed. “No, I’m not okay.”

“There must’ve been some way she was contacting Lockwood to give him the anti-anxiety medication,” Wyatt said.

Lucy looked around. No purse, no wallet, no phone. Lockwood must’ve cleaned it out. But there was mail sitting on the kitchen table.

Lucy snapped her fingers. “Phone bill!” She turned to Flynn. “We need her phone bill records, it’ll show every call she made.”

Jiya stood up. “She’s been dead three days. I’ll… I’ll have CSU get her to the lab. See if we can get anything else off of her. Prints, something.”

Lucy put her hand on Jiya’s shoulder. “We’re going to find them. We’ll trace Lockwood’s phone with the GPS once we get it from the phone bill.”

Jiya wasn’t crying. Her face was cold and hard. “You find them, and you don’t hold back. I want that bastard six feet under.”

Lucy knew how she felt. “We’re going to get Rufus back safe.” That was all she could promise.

* * *

Jess growled, trying to yank away from the men holding her. They had her and Rufus on their knees in front of a kind of trough, hands tied behind their backs, a rope around their necks. Yeah, Jess was pretty sure Rufus especially didn’t like the connotations of that.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” the man known as Lockwood said to them. He was tall, with reddish brown hair and stubble, graced with the kind of square, hard face that immediately warned you he was a Grade A douchecanoe. “You’re going to tell me all that you know about your Raglan case.”

He nodded at one of his men—there were quite a few of them, all ex-military if Jess’s observations about their behavior were correct—and the guy began to fill the trough with ice and water.

“Or,” Lockwood went on, “you can jerk me around, and I can make this real unpleasant for you.”

Rufus looked at Jess. She knew what her answer was. Stupid as it might be. Amy was definitely going to kill her for this later.

Jess nodded.

Rufus looked Lockwood in the eye. “Sorry man. We’re definitely gonna jerk you around.”

Lockwood shrugged. “Your choice.” He seized the back of Rufus’s head and shoved it under the water.

* * *

Lucy huddled in the car as Flynn eyed the place through binoculars, Wyatt next to her. Lockwood's phone had led them to this warehouse, where he must have Jess and Rufus. It made Lucy's heart thump painfully hard and fast in her chest to think about whatever Lockwood was doing. If she let Jess get hurt, Amy was never going to forgive her.

“They’ve got a guard,” Flynn whispered. “Guy’s gonna spot a SWAT team from a mile away.”

“We call the cops,” Wyatt said, “Rufus and Jess are as good as dead.”

Flynn nodded, setting down the binoculars. “I’m open to stupid ideas right about now.”

“Good,” Lucy said, “because I’ve got one.”

She and Wyatt emerged from behind the car, holding onto each other, laughing and swaying like they were drunk. They kept their heads ducked down and turned into each other, stumbling, clutching, trying to behave like they were completely sloshed. It was dark out, nighttime, on a Friday, it surely wasn’t too insane to think that a drunk couple would be out and about, right?

Through her lashes she could see the guard start to walk towards them, his hand on his hip where his gun was kept. Fuck. Lucy kept her up the act, but the guard didn’t look convinced. He looked pissed off, and suspicious, and any moment now he was going to put the gun to their heads if they didn’t think of something to convince him they were truly hammered.

It was probably the stupidest thing she’d ever done, and she’d done a lot of stupid things, but she grabbed Wyatt and yanked him away from her side so that they were facing each other. Wyatt got an odd look on his face and she could see him thinking, _Lucy what are you doing_.

Lucy took his face in her hands and kissed him.

Wyatt flailed for a second, clearly caught off guard, but then she pushed more into the kiss and he got with the program, his hands falling to her hips, his mouth moving against hers. She had been right, when she’d idly daydreamed about the two men during her more ridiculous moments: Wyatt was a soft, pliant kisser, letting her take the lead.

She heard the guard make an amused noise, heard the crunch of gravel on his feet as he started to turn away from them—and then the noise of pain and surprise, and the thud of his body on the ground.

Lucy wrenched herself away from Wyatt’s mouth (and Wyatt’s absolutely train wrecked face) to see Flynn taking the unconscious guard’s gun away from him.

“That was amazing,” Wyatt blurted out.

Lucy and Flynn both turned to stare at him.

Wyatt pointed at Flynn. “I meant the way you knocked him out.”

Flynn gave the two of them a look that Lucy couldn’t even begin to parcel out, a look that had layers and layers, and then tossed his phone to Lucy. “Stay out here, call Denise, tell her to be stealthy. We’ll go in and get them.”

Lucy’s mouth felt warm, her lips tingling. She wanted to kiss Wyatt again. Then she wanted to kiss Flynn. Then kiss him again. Make it even.

“Be careful,” she said instead.

Flynn nodded. Wyatt still looked like he’d been cracked over the head with a two-by-four, but he dutifully followed Flynn into the building.

Lucy called Denise’s office and wondered if it would be worth it to pray.

* * *

Lockwood yanked Rufus out of the water, Rufus coughing and spluttering. “The ice water burns real bad when it gets into the lungs, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“You’ve made your point,” Jess snarled.

“Have I?” Lockwood asked her. “You ready to talk?”

Jess put on a mournful face. “It’s too late,” she whispered. “The cops already know everything… about me and your mom.”

She smiled beatifically up at him.

Lockwood stared at her for a beat, clearly pissed. Then he released Rufus. “Shoot out her kneecap.”

The rope around her neck tightened and spots danced in her vision momentarily as Jess was yanked back. Rufus yelled, furious, trying to get to her as she was forced back, legs splayed, one of the men readying his gun and yeah, Amy was definitely going to kill her for this—

Blood sprayed everywhere as someone hit the man in the head.

Jess winced as some of the spray hit her. “That was one of my favorite shirts!”

“Only you would complain about the nature of your daring rescue!” Wyatt yelled back, even though Jess was ninety percent certain it was Flynn who’d taken that head shot.

Jess grinned. The cavalry had arrived.

* * *

Wyatt ran through the warehouse, dodging boxes and machinery, firing, focused on getting to Jess and Rufus. Flynn’s job was taking on the men properly—he was the better marksman.

“You guys okay?” Wyatt asked, reaching his friends and dropping to his knees to cut free their ropes. Rufus was soaked from his shoulders up, and Jess had what looked like rope burn around her neck.

“Peachy,” Jess said.

“I have a new appreciation for penguins,” Rufus added, his voice a bit hoarse.

Wyatt helped them to their feet. “Let’s go, let’s get you out of here.”

He shoved Jess towards the door, and that was when he saw it.

Lockwood was aiming for Flynn.

Wyatt took off at a run, definitely not thinking about it, launching himself at Lockwood and sending both of them crashing to the floor. By some miracle he landed on top and he yanked the gun out of Lockwood’s hands, his fist crashing down into the man’s face. Wyatt hit him again, again, fury rising out of him faster than he could handle it. Lorena and Iris, Rufus and Jess, innocents a dozen times over, names he knew and didn’t know, and underneath it all Flynn, Flynn, Flynn, this fucker wasn’t going to touch Flynn again—

“He’s had enough, Wyatt,” Flynn said, yanking him back even as Wyatt kept swinging. “I said he’s had enough!”

Flynn dragged Wyatt far back enough that Wyatt couldn’t get to Lockwood anymore, and Wyatt realized that Lockwood was unconscious. That he probably had been for some time.

Also, his hand really fucking hurt.

“Denise is here,” Flynn said quietly, helping Wyatt to his feet.

“About time,” Wyatt said, even though he knew that she’d gotten there as fast as she could, and that it had only been a few minutes.

Flynn gave him a look of fond exasperation. “Give me that hand.”

There was an ambulance, because Denise was prepared that way and Rufus definitely needed to be checked for pneumonia or something, and Flynn snatched up some bandages to wrap around Wyatt’s knuckles.

“You didn’t have to hit him that many times,” Flynn noted, winding the bandaging around and through Wyatt’s fingers. “You’re lucky you didn’t break your hand with the way you were wailing on him.”

“He deserved it.” Wyatt hissed as Flynn tightened the bandage and tied it off.

“Don’t be a baby,” Flynn said, but he was smiling, his fingers brushing over the back of Wyatt’s hand.

Wyatt wanted to be a baby if it meant Flynn kept doing that, kept taking care of him and pampering him.

“You guys!” It was Lucy. Her face was a mask of worry, but it shifted when she got close and saw that neither of them was being examined by the EMTs. “You’re okay.”

“Nothing except for Rocky’s hand here,” Flynn said, holding up the hand in question. Wyatt wanted Flynn to never let go.

Lucy looked at Wyatt, and fuck, now that he knew what it felt like to kiss her, to have her warm hands on his face, to have her sucking on his tongue and sliding her lips against his, pressing her body up against him—it was going to be an act of constant willpower not to drag her in for a repeat performance.

Flynn cleared his throat, dropping Wyatt’s hand. “I should go.”

“Go?” Lucy looked stricken. “Where? Why?”

“I’m accompanying Lockwood to prison,” Flynn explained.

“We can come,” Wyatt said, standing up. “We want to come.”

Flynn shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. This is… I want to do this alone.”

Lucy looked hurt. “All right. We’ll be waiting for you at home.”

_Home_. She’d called their apartment home.

Flynn nodded, and walked over towards the squad cars. Lucy looked at Wyatt. “What do we do?” she asked.

“Wait up for him,” Wyatt said. It was the only answer he had.

* * *

Lockwood was silent the entire drive. Flynn wasn’t surprised.

“Reiker, how goes it?” he asked the guard on duty at check in.

“Business as usual,” Reiker replied. He was a good kid, in his late twenties, still fresh-faced. And with a crush on Lucy, if the way he’d acted when they came to put McAllister behind bars was any indication.

Flynn filled out the paperwork to put Lockwood in solitary. Putting him in general populace would just be asking for trouble. “I’ve put a lot of guys behind bars here,” he noted.

Lockwood still said nothing. Not that Flynn expected him to.

“Some of them want to kill me. Others never been treated so fairly in their lives. So they form this attachment to me, it’s like I’m their favorite school teacher.” He handed the paperwork back and then looked Lockwood in the eye. “Some of those people might visit you in here. Like the ghosts with Scrooge. And after some time you might find yourself a changed man.” He finally let a slow, vindictive smile cross his lips. “So I’m going to be here week after week to ask who hired you. Until that miracle occurs.”

He watched as the guards took Lockwood away, never wavering from Lockwood’s eyes. This was about to become the longest game of chicken he’d ever played.

Game on.

* * *

The last few weeks had been a fucking nightmare.

Flynn wasn’t sleeping well. Lucy wasn’t sleeping well. Wyatt himself wasn’t sleeping well. Lucy was experiencing writer’s block on the second book and was dodging attempts to do a press release or other promotional work for the first book. Flynn was staring off into space a lot, and was crankier than usual, snapping at everyone.

So Wyatt did something stupid.

He went to see Lockwood.

Flynn had been to see Lockwood faithfully every week, but so far, nothing. Wyatt couldn’t help but wonder if maybe seeing someone else, a different approach, might knock something loose.

He signed in with Reiker, who made the call to ask that Lockwood be taken out of solitary and brought to the visitor’s room for Wyatt. But after he gave the instructions, Reiker got a strange look on his face.

“What is it?” Wyatt asked. Had Lockwood’s employer arranged for him to be murdered?

Reiker looked over at him. “Lockwood was transferred to general population this morning.”

No. “Get me in there, get me in there now!”

It was too late.

Lockwood had already gotten to Gary McAllister. And it wasn’t a pretty death.

* * *

Lucy didn’t understand how Flynn was so calm about this as they prepared to go to Lockwood’s hearing for the murder of McAllister. “You’re looking better than I’ve seen you in weeks.” He was even wearing his lucky burgundy turtleneck, the one that he swore he didn’t believe was lucky but that he always wore when he was hoping for a positive outcome on something.

“Yes.” Flynn sipped his coffee and perused his email on his phone while Wyatt put on his shoes.

“But Lockwood just killed McAllister. One of the men who has information—vital information—that we need!”

Flynn finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. “Lucy, we entered a staring contest with the Devil. And the Devil just blinked. So yeah. We lost McAllister. But this third cop, whoever they are? They’re scared now. They’re feeling threatened. Animals lash out when they’re cornered, not before that. So I’m starting to like our odds.”

Lucy wasn’t so sure, but she trusted Flynn, if nothing else.

Hearings for criminals were not at all like they were on television. It was a very quiet affair, nobody there except the people who had to be, in a small courtroom that was also usually stuffy.

Lucy sat on Flynn’s right, Wyatt on his left. Usually they tended to put her in the middle—protective instincts, she supposed—but today, she and Wyatt wanted to be there for Flynn. Wyatt was beating himself up for not getting to Lockwood sooner, not stopping him from killing McAllister, as if Wyatt was somehow supposed to have read Lockwood’s mind or seen the future and known when Lockwood would be transferred.

That was the concerning bit. Only a guard could have transferred Lockwood. Rufus and Jess were looking into the financial records of the guards to see who could’ve been bribed or blackmailed into helping. Rufus insisted on not taking any time off from active duty, a decision that Jiya had vehemently disagreed with. The entire precinct was trying to avoid stepping on a landmine in the cold war that had resulted.

The judge began to address Lockwood, who looked not only unconcerned, but smug as he stood there. Sure, the guy probably had an ego the size of Texas but wasn’t looking so smug at his hearing a bit stupid, even for a professional hitman?

Three cops entered the room and sat down in benches across from Lucy and the men. Lucy frowned. Something about them looked off. She couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Their hats? Their shoes?

“What’s wrong?” Flynn whispered.

Lucy figured it out. “The badges on their shoulders are brass. Shouldn’t they be…”

One of the cops stood up and pulled something out from his inner jacket pocket.

“Get down!” Wyatt yelled as Flynn yanked at her, the three of them falling to the floor in a heap as flash grenades went off, blinding them all.

Lucy staggered to her feet as quickly as she could, Flynn dashing through the pews to try and run after the fake cops and Lockwood. She grabbed onto the back of a pew to try and orient herself as Wyatt got to his feet and ran after Flynn.

By the time she got to the lobby, Flynn was snarling into the air and Wyatt had one hand braced against the wall to try and catch his breath. Lucy didn’t even have to ask—Lockwood had gotten away.

Whoever this third cop was, or had been, he was now clearly powerful enough to hire a rescue team to bust Lockwood out of prison, and who knew what else. Lucy’s blood felt cold. This person was someone with money and connections.

How the hell were they supposed to beat him?

* * *

“For the love of God, tell me we have something,” Flynn said as they walked back into the precinct. He had just let Lockwood slip through his fucking fingers and yes, yes he knew that it wasn’t exactly his fault but at the same time he felt played like a goddamn fiddle. Rittenhouse or whoever Lockwood’s employers were had set him up but good and they’d done their part exactly the way that Rittenhouse had predicted they would. They’d been outsmarted this time. Plain and simple.

It made him furious, and he was so, so tired of being furious. A constant state of outrage was fucking exhausting.

“Reiker was in deep financial trouble and had received large payments just before the transfer,” Rufus said. “His name was the one on the transfer sheet.”

“Fuck, Reiker?” Wyatt looked distressed. “He’s a good kid.”

“Everyone has their breaking point,” Flynn said grimly. “Wyatt and I will go check up on him. What else, there has to be something.”

Jess spoke up. “Apparently once a week, Lockwood would make a collect call to the same number. The number never accepted the charges, so the call never went through—until last week. All phone calls are recorded by the prison, so we have a copy here.” She hit play.

The conversation was short and simple.

“How’s the family?” Lockwood asked, starting the conversation.

“Same. How are Charlie and Mike?” the person responded. It was an older male voice that Flynn didn’t recognize.

“Good.”

The recording ended.

“That’s when he hung up,” Jess explained.

“What does that mean?” Wyatt asked. “Charlie and Mike?”

“It’s a code,” Lucy said. “I learned about this while doing research—Charlie and Mike means ‘continue mission’.”

“Well, we know that didn’t mean McAllister,” Flynn said, gears turning. “That was tying up a loose end, and a means to escape. So what mission is he continuing?”

“Whatever Rittenhouse’s mission is,” Lucy said quietly.

Whatever the hell that was, it couldn’t be anything good.

* * *

While Wyatt and Flynn went to find Reiker, Lucy, Rufus, and Jess got Chinese food and holed up in one of the briefing rooms, evidence all spread out in front of them. Every case that Raglan and McAllister had ever worked, every bit of information from Lorena’s files, all of it.

Lucy flipped through page after page, trying not to let the words blur in front of her. Rufus was passed out in a chair, while Jess slowly went through her own files while picking at the remains of her lo mein.

Huh.

Lucy flipped through the file one more time, making sure, but yes—yes, she might not know a lot about police filing but she knew typewriters and this…

“Look at this.” She held the file out to Jess. “If you hold this up to the light, see the lack of ribbon markings here? On typewriters, you’ll have those ribbon markings but not right here, not where this name is. Someone made a copy, covered up the original name, and put on this new one.”

The current name said ‘Napalatono’. Jess nudged Rufus. “Rufus, look up Officer Napalatono.”

Lucy dove for the case files, trying to find all the ones where Raglan had supposedly done something with Napalatono. All of them had the same issue as the first: they were cover ups for the name of the real cop.

“Looks like Napalatono died a few years ago from liver failure,” Rufus said, checking the records on the computer. “Worked in vice, commendation, yada yada.”

“Find out who was working the records room when these case files were submitted,” Lucy said. “Someone covered up the name of the real cop who was with Raglan on those cases and I’ll bet you anything it’s the third cop from the kidnapping ring. The founder of this… Rittenhouse group.”

Jess and Rufus nodded. Finally, they had a new lead.

* * *

Flynn rubbed his face. He felt like he hadn’t slept in a decade. A hundred years. Like time didn’t have its usual meaning for him anymore and he was just jumping through it backwards.

Reiker had been found dead in his apartment. No information about Lockwood or the third cop, Lockwood’s employer, was there. Nothing on this elusive Rittenhouse group either. It felt like every time he thought a door was opening in the wall, it would turn out to be a fake out and there would just be more brick wall behind it.

“You’re still here.” It wasn’t a question.

Flynn looked up from the case files and saw Denise standing there. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

“I was having a long talk with Jiya downstairs.” Denise put on her coat. “Michelle and I have had our fair share of frustrations over my choices in this job. I wanted to give her a bit of perspective, for her and Rufus.”

“Ah.”

Denise walked over and stared at the murder board. Flynn’s throat got tight.

“You worry me, Flynn. You have since you took this job.” Denise was still staring at the board. “You’re so compassionate. So determined to do the right thing, even if the right thing is against the letter of the law. You’d be the man who killed five people to save a hundred even if you knew you’d go to prison for it.”

“I think you’re trying to compliment me here, so I’ll say thank you.”

Denise looked at him. “We speak for the dead, Flynn. That’s our job. But we don’t owe them our lives.”

Flynn cleared his throat. “Wyatt’s worried we can’t win this.”

Denise folded her arms. “Maybe not. Sometimes you can’t. Sometimes all you can do is pick your place to take a stand.” She turned and looked at him. “And if this is your place? Then I’ll stand there with you.”

She gave him a small smile, and Flynn… Flynn didn’t know what else to do, what to say to express how much that meant to him, and so he just smiled back, and hoped that Denise understood.

* * *

Rufus stared up at the bar as he and Jess walked up. “How’d a retired cop buy a whole bar?” he asked.

“An excellent question,” Jess said, opening the door for him. “Why don’t we ask him?”

Donovich had been the cop in charge of the records room when the files had been changed, and he’d been in the same graduating class as McAllister and Raglan. Rufus really hoped they could finally get a lead on this one. He could feel all of them stretched thin, run ragged, not a moment’s pause in between Keynes, Emma, and now Lorena and Iris’s case coming back up. There was only so far they could all go until they snapped.

Jess stepped lively, going right up to the bar and greeting the old man wiping it down. “Hi.” She gave a winning smile. Rufus admired Jess’s ability to bounce back from anything, to stay on her toes, to never let them see her belly. Now that he knew more about what she’d done, what she’d gone through, he admired it even more. “We’re looking for the owner of this place? A Mr. Donovich?”

“That’s me.” The guy smiled at her. “What can I get for you?”

Jess flashed her badge. “We’re looking for information on two cops that you might’ve known. A John Raglan and a Gary McAllister.”

Rufus peered at the myriad of photos taped up behind the bar, all of cops hanging out here. Some he recognized, most he didn’t.

“Ah, yeah, I went to the academy same time they did. They were two peas in a pod.”

“You were in charge of the records room when some of Raglan’s files were illegally altered,” Jess said. “The name of the officer he was making those arrests with was erased. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Donovich bristled. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know.” Jess looked around, shrugging. “This sure must’ve cost a lot to buy. How’d you afford it?”

“A generous gift from a friend.” Donovich turned towards the pictures and plucked one off the wall, turning back and handing it to Jess. “If you want to know about any shady business with McAllister and Raglan, ask him. He was their pal back in the day. ‘Course he’s pretty high up now, but…”

Rufus stared down at the photograph, which showed a young Raglan and a young McAllister with a third man. “I think I recognize this guy.”

“Yeah you do,” Jess said, her voice wary. “That’s Senator Benjamin Cahill.”

* * *

Mason sighed as he poured himself a glass of scotch. It was a Robert Johnson sort of night, he decided, heading for the record player.

Lucy wasn’t backing off. She wasn’t going to stop playing cop with Wyatt and Flynn. Out of all the cops, in the entire city, why those two? Why had fate conspired to bring them together? Now she was in danger, now he couldn’t keep her safe…

“Lovely place you’ve got here,” someone said. “And on such short notice, too. Pity about the fire.”

Mason turned to see Lockwood standing in the shadow of his bedroom doorway. “I’ll have to fire my doorman if he lets in all sorts of riffraff up here.”

“Your doorman didn’t see me.” Lockwood stepped into the light. Mason hadn’t seen the man in some time. Good to know that Cahill kept the same sort of degenerates on his payroll. The man was predictable like that. “Mason. You know what the deal was.”

“I’m doing my best, here, but it’s a little difficult when you’re running around aggravating them. Sniping Raglan right in front of them? Honestly.” He took a sip of scotch to cover up how his voice threatened to waver.

“You were once one of us, Mason. You know how we operate.”

“No.” Mason set his glass down. “I was once the idiot who let Carol talk me into accepting your funding because I was a fool who didn’t know better. I was never one of you.” He paused. “My blood was never blue enough for one thing.”

Lockwood scoffed. “Look, we could sit here and play tit for tat all night, but I don’t have that kind of time. You promised you’d keep them from looking into this. And now look what’s happened.”

“Cahill won’t have anything happen to Lucy. You know that as well as I do. It’s an empty threat.”

Lockwood shrugged and nodded, conceding the point. “It would upset him, I’ll give you that. But the detectives?” Lockwood gave a small smile. It was like watching a grizzly bear try to do ballet. “They’re fair game.”

He took the glass of scotch from Mason and downed the rest of it, handing the glass back to him. “You always did have good taste.”

He walked past Mason and to the front door of the apartment. “I’d prepare Lucy Preston for another loss, if I were you. We had a deal, Mason. They’re only safe as long as they don’t look into Rittenhouse.” He shrugged. “You failed.”

Then he opened the front door and was gone.

* * *

Jiya heard the front door open, signaling that Rufus had come home. “I’m in the bedroom.”

He walked in, doing that thing when he was unsure about his welcome where he’d walk as quietly as possible. Jiya set aside her book and looked up at him.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“I just want you to be more careful, that’s all,” she whispered. “It’s not that I don’t respect your oath or your commitment. I just want you to—there has to be a balance between that and your health.”

Rufus walked over to her, shedding his jacket and shoes as he did so, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I know. And I’m tired of trying to find that balance. I’m tired of sacrificing for a job that I’m not sure is doing enough good, in a system that I can’t help but feel is… still too corrupt, still too power-hungry.”

“I’m not trying to get you to quit. I want you to do what you want.”

“I know.” Rufus leaned in and kissed her for the first time in days. Jiya let it linger, let it drag on, savoring it. “This is what I want. I’m going to talk to Mason, accept his job offer. Apply to MIT just for the fun of it.”

Jiya reached up, cupping his cheek. “Whatever makes you happy. I love you, and I just want you to be happy.”

“That’s just it. This job isn’t making me happy. It’s not like I’m just feeling guilty about not doing something else, something more. It’s that I disagree with the institution, and I’m not happy, _and _I feel guilty.” He smiled at her. “But I don’t regret it. It got me good friends. It got me you.”

“And you’ve got me.” Jiya brushed their noses together. “I promise. Now come to bed.”

“…come to bed or… _come to bed_.”

Jiya grinned at him. “Get your goddamn clothes off, Carlin.”

Rufus seemed more than happy to comply.

* * *

Flynn stood in front of the two slabs of stone, unable to keep from thinking about those lines from that one musical. _Passing bells and sculpted angels, cold and monumental, seem for you the wrong companions—you were warm and gentle._

He did this every year. On their birthdays, on their anniversary, he tried to celebrate their lives. To remember them as they had been, and not… like this. But on today, the anniversary of their deaths, he visited here. Put flowers on their graves.

_Lorena Flynn. Iris Flynn._

Flynn swallowed, then crouched down and laid the arrangements in their spots. “I usually… just talk to them. Tell them all that they’ve missed in the year while they were gone.”

Beside him, Lucy nodded. Wyatt was a few feet behind. Flynn had never invited Wyatt to come before. Wyatt came, he knew, every once in a while. He could stand to come more often than Flynn could and he made sure the graves were neat. Flynn appreciated that.

“Thank you,” Lucy said. “For bringing me. I know it’s a lot. I… I know what it means.”

She crouched down, arranging the flowers. “I bet you were lovely,” she whispered to Iris’s stone.

Wyatt turned away. Flynn was aware that Wyatt didn’t think that talking to the graves did anything. “If their spirits can be anywhere then why would they be here instead of in my bedroom? Why can’t I talk to them there?” was Wyatt’s stance. But he didn’t say anything against Flynn coming here.

Flynn stood up and took a deep breath. Tried to remind himself he could do this. “Hey, I know it’s been a while. Lots of… stuff, going on.” He took another deep breath. Lorena would’ve liked Lucy, he thought. “This here is Lucy. She’s…”

“Flynn!” Wyatt slammed into him, shoving him—

Pain.

Like a blow to the sternum, feeling shards, fire, apocalypse in his chest, burning, breaking, life leaking out—

Lucy screamed and he thought no, no, not her, not Lucy, but then he realized he was weightless, and his back hit the ground hard and he thought… no, not Lucy. Him. He’d been hit.

“Garcia!” Lucy’s hands were on his chest. It hurt, she was pressing her hands right into the heart of the fire. “Garcia, no, stay with me, stay with me—”

“What’s my emergency!?” Wyatt, who was Wyatt talking to? “A man’s been shot, that’s my emergency, he’s bleeding out—fuck, yes, um, the chest, in the chest—no, I don’t know! No I’m not gonna be fucking calm, how about we see your husband shot and we’ll see how fucking calm you are!”

“Don’t do this.” Lucy was pressing down, down, down, fuck, it hurt so much, he’d never had anything hurt this much. “Garcia, don’t do this, don’t leave, don’t you leave me—”

Black spots were swimming in his vision. The pain was lessening. It was all getting fuzzy…

“Garcia stay, stay, stay, don’t leave.” Lucy was sobbing. “Garcia, don’t—you have to stay, you have to stay, don’t you know, I love you, I _love _you, you can’t leave, I love you—”

His vision went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The case here is taken from the episodes "Knockdown" (3x13) and "Knockout" (3x24).


	10. Chapter 10

Wyatt had been standing behind Flynn, staring out over the cemetery. He didn’t really do the whole ‘talking to the graves’ thing. It made him feel like an idiot. Instead he just came to clean up the graves, lay flowers, keep them neat. He knew that Lorena and Iris, wherever they were, didn’t care. But Flynn cared, and well—it was something Wyatt could do for them. He hadn’t been able to do anything for them while they were alive. He could do this for them, now.

He’d been standing there, feeling heavy inside, choked up, without exactly knowing why, when he’d seen something between the gravestones. Something glinting in the sunlight. What would glint like that? It wasn’t on the ground, it was above the ground…

A scope. From a sniper rifle.

“Flynn!”

He’d dove, slamming into Flynn as the shot rang out, knocking Flynn out of the way—but not enough, not nearly enough, as they crashed to the ground and he saw blood blooming bright on Flynn’s chest.

Wyatt had fumbled for his phone. 9-1-1, he’d needed—they’d needed help, they’d needed help—

Lucy had been pressing her hands to Flynn’s chest, blood all over her fingers, begging him, pleading. Flynn’s face had been horribly blank, his eyes looking dazed. “I love you,” Lucy had sobbed. “You can’t leave, I love you.”

_Please, God, _he'd thought through the whole thing. What had he told Flynn, that one time? "If you ever hear me praying, you know it's bad." Like a reflex, a foolish hope from childhood that he just couldn't shake, he'd prayed. _Please, God, please, don't take him. Do whatever else you want, but not that._

It was all a blur after that.

Wyatt stared down at his hands, wondered how they could still be shaking. He had echoes, impressions—being in the ambulance, doctors and nurses swarming around Flynn in the hospital, dragging Lucy back because she’d tried to go into surgery with Flynn, literally ripping her hands off the rail of the gurney, Lucy screaming—

“You have to have an update,” Lucy was saying now, her voice hysterical, arguing with the woman at the desk. “It’s been—it’s been forever, you have to—they have to have some news, they have—”

“Ma’am, I understand that you’re upset but I promise you that we’ll tell you as soon as there’s any news to tell.”

“Then send someone in and check!” Wyatt knew he should intervene but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t get himself to move, or to speak, he was just sitting there shaking. “You can send in a—a nurse, someone to tell us how it’s going, you must, you have to—”

“Lucy.”

Denise was there. When had Denise gotten there?

She wrapped an arm around Lucy’s shoulders and firmly pulled her back, leading her over to where Wyatt sat. “I’ve called the others, they’ll be here shortly.” She sat Lucy down next to Wyatt. “Do you want to wash your hands?”

Wyatt looked down and saw that Lucy’s hands were still covered in blood. Flynn’s blood.

Something inside of him dug its claws in and ripped him open, and he started crying, crying so hard he couldn’t breathe, and Denise was far more gentle than he had ever imagined she could be as she sat on his other side and wrapped her arms around him, soothing him.

“I’ve got you,” she said. “I’ve got you both.”

She didn’t say it would be all right. She didn’t say Flynn would pull through. Wyatt both hated her and was grateful to her for that.

After all, Denise had never been one to lie.

* * *

Denise washed her hands.

Lucy stood there as the warm water ran over them and Denise scrubbed them clean, and wiped them down with a towel, and put Lucy in the clean clothes that Amy had brought. She had forgotten, until now, that Denise was a mother. She’d forgotten, until now, what it had been like to be a child, and to have a nightmare, and to crawl into Mom’s bed and have Mom hug her. Not that Mom had done that often. Dad had always been the soft one. But sometimes, she would let it out.

“Take these,” Denise said, handing Lucy tissues, and she realized she was crying. She didn’t know if it was for Flynn, or her mother, or herself.

Lucy blew her nose and wiped at her eyes. “The shooter…”

“Rufus is looking into it, establishing a perimeter, looking for evidence.”

“It’s Lockwood.”

“Probably.” Denise smoothed Lucy’s hair back from her face. “Now, there’s no news about Flynn yet. So how about you stay in here with me, and get all your crying out, and then we can go and sit with Wyatt.”

Lucy could see the headlines now, the ones she wanted to avoid: _Famous Author Seen Bawling Eyes Out in Hospital Waiting Room_. Yes, Denise’s plan sounded like a good one.

She let Denise hug her, resting her head on the older woman’s shoulder. “Nothing like a good cry, I always tell my kids. Cry it out and then we can tackle the problem.”

The problem was that Flynn was dying. The problem was that the man she loved had been shot. The problem…

Lucy shamelessly rubbed her nose on Denise’s shirt and cried harder.

By the time they got out, Jess was sitting with Wyatt, who looked like an absolute wreck. His whole face was blotchy and his nose was red, his eyes bloodshot. Jess was quietly holding his hand.

He looked up as Lucy and Denise walked over. Lucy hesitated. She didn’t know what she and Wyatt were, exactly. They’d kissed, once, as part of a cover or perhaps not so much. They both were in love with Flynn.

She sat down next to him and took his other hand.

“I have to go help with the investigation,” Jess said. She kissed Wyatt on the cheek and then stood up, releasing his hand. “Amy should be back soon. The press already got a hold of the story, she went to go take care of it.”

Lucy nodded. “Thank you.”

Jess kissed the top of her head and then nodded at Denise and headed out. Denise sighed. “I’ll go get us all some coffee.”

All was silent for a few minutes. Then Wyatt said, his voice hoarse, “I should’ve realized what it was.”

“What?” Lucy looked at him.

“The… I saw the glint, from the guy’s scope. And I should’ve… I wasn’t fast enough. I should’ve been faster. I should’ve run after him.”

“I was a wreck, I couldn’t have called 9-1-1. You did, you saved his life.”

“We don’t know that yet. You can’t say that yet.”

Lucy swallowed. It felt like knives were scraping the inside of her throat. “This is my fault. I pushed him into looking into the case again. I went in—I shouldn’t have gone in, I dragged this whole thing up, I…”

“What?” Wyatt looked at her. “Lucy, you didn’t shoot him.”

“But I put him in the cross hairs.”

“No. Flynn chose to look into this too, okay? So did I. We all—this wasn’t your fault, Lucy. You didn’t do this to him.”

She wiped at her eyes. “I feel like I set him up to die. Made him a promise that I couldn’t keep: you’ll get justice for your family. I found a new clue, here, go fetch.”

“That’s not what it was. You were trying to help him, help both of us. You wanted to give him peace of mind.”

Lucy wasn’t sure if she could absolve herself so easily.

“Mr. Logan?”

Lucy’s head whipped around as Wyatt stood up to find a doctor making his way towards them. “You two are here with Garcia Flynn, yes?”

“Yes, yeah, that’s us.” Wyatt nodded. “I’m his emergency contact.”

“Is he all right?” Lucy asked. She stood up, next to Wyat.

“I’m sorry the surgery took so long,” the doctor explained. “We couldn’t find where he was bleeding from. It was hard to sew him up—his blood pressure kept dropping. But we found where the leak was.”

“He’s okay?” Lucy felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“The bullet grazed the ventricle. We had to defibrillate at one point—but his heart came back online. He’s a real fighter. But that did mean that he flatlined. We’re going to have to keep an eye on him.”

He flatlined. He _flatlined_. Flynn had—his heart had—

Lucy found herself sitting back down in the chair.

“He flatlined!?” Wyatt croaked, looking like a bomb had gone off at his feet.

The doctor nodded. “Yes. For a couple minutes. But as I said, we were able to get his heart pumping again, and all seems to be well. We just need to have him under observation for a few days, even after he wakes up.”

“He’s not awake,” Wyatt said.

“No. After a surgery like that he needs his rest. You’re welcome to see him, if you’d like. We’ve put him in a room.”

Lucy looked up at Wyatt, who looked about ready to pass out. “Yes. Yes please, we’d like to see him,” she said, when Wyatt continued to look too shell shocked to answer.

The doctor nodded. “Right this way.”

Lucy had seen Flynn asleep (passed out on the couch after watching one too many movies with them). She’d seen him exhausted in every situation possible. She’d also seen him beat up. But she had never seen him like this. He looked pale, beyond tired, with dark circles under his eyes and a sickly yellow tinge to his skin. His skin itself looked paper thin, and Lucy was deeply, painfully aware of how little was protecting them from death, how nothing but a few flimsy paper-thin layers of skin were all that stood between the world and their vital organs.

Wyatt clutched the doorframe like he was going to pass out.

Lucy lurched forward, moving to sit on the edge of the hospital bed. Flynn didn’t stir, his monitors beeping steadily. He was hooked up to so much. Lucy could see a morphine drip, among others, and worried about how much Flynn would have to use that to dull the pain once he was awake.

The thing about Flynn was, the only times she saw him be still was when he was crouched in preparation for something. That something could be a suspect emerging from a building, or it could be a pot about to boil. But there was never stillness for the sake of it. It was an act of waiting—a verb. Now, though. Now he was just lying there.

Lucy reached forward, brushing his hair back, her fingertips trailing down the side of his face. Her thumb ran along his cheekbone. Flynn still didn’t stir, but she could feel the warmth of him, his breath puffing against the curve of her hand, his chest moving in deep, even breaths underneath the blanket. Lucy slowly, like gravity, fell forward until her forehead pressed against his shoulder, his hand caught up in both of hers. She wanted to squeeze, to press, to feel everywhere, but she didn’t want to hurt him. She tried to keep her touch gentle.

Wyatt walked over, sitting behind her, his hand falling to Flynn’s leg. He didn’t say anything. Neither did she. They just rested there, holding on, like they were trying to keep a china bowl together even with all the cracks running through it.

* * *

"Don't do this."

_Someone's saying something. Someone's begging._

"God, please, I'm a sorry son of a bitch and both you and I know it but don't you dare, don't you _dare_ take him."

_He knows this person. This person doesn't beg like this. Not to God, anyway._

"Still not awake?"

"No."

"I… I heard…"

"I don't usually…"

"Neither do I."

_He knows them, he knows them, but he can't remember names or how or why. He just knows_…

"I figure… at this point, it can't hurt." A pause. "He's Catholic. Or was. I don't know. But he told me once he wanted a Catholic funeral."

_He knows he loves them. He has to get back to them._

Fingers interlocked with his. He had fingers. Did he have the rest of his body? He didn't know.

_He falls back under the surface._

* * *

Benjamin Cahill was a busy man, and a paranoid one. Jess was frisked three times at different checkpoints before she was brought into his office. Cahill watched her from behind his desk, like an elderly shark wondering if she was worth trying to catch.

“Detective Logan,” Cahill said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Let’s not pretend this is a pleasure for you,” Jess replied. “I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Garcia Flynn survived your little attempt on his life.”

“It’s all over the news. Decorated homicide detective is shot while visiting the graves of his ruthlessly murdered family, it’s truly headline-grabbing material.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Jess shrugged. “Flynn’s like a cockroach.”

“Mmm. Out of all the officers from the twelfth precinct I expected to show up at my office, I did not think you would be one of them.” Cahill tilted his head at her, his fingers steepled together. “What exactly brings you to my office, detective? Besides wanton accusations against my character.”

“I thought we could make a deal. I’m good at making deals.” Jess held up the photograph from the cop bar. “I know that you were the third cop in the mafia kidnapping ring, Cahill. You know, that would explain how you rose through the ranks so quickly. Became police commissioner. Funded your senatorial campaign. Left your poor buddies Raglan and McAllister in the dust. I’d’ve been pissed if I were them but I guess they’re more forgiving than I am.”

“You have a photograph. How cute. This proves nothing.”

“Not yet it doesn’t. But others know about this photograph. They’ll tell Flynn, and he’ll keep digging. So will Wyatt Logan. So will Lucy Preston.”

Something in Cahill’s eyes flickered at the mention of Lucy. Intriguing. Jess walked forward, laying the photograph on the desk. “So here’s what I’m offering. You call off Lockwood. You leave Flynn and Wyatt alone. And I’ll make sure their trail goes cold. How’s that sound?”

“You’re rather protective of your ex-husband,” Cahill noted. “Are you sure there aren’t any lingering feelings there?”

“There’s a shocking notion going around that people can care about their friends as much as they care about their lovers. You should try it sometime.” Jess paused. “Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot you have a terminal lack of empathy. That was inconsiderate of me.”

Cahill sat up straighter. “And why would this be more attractive to me than simply killing Flynn?”

“Gee, after how well last time went? You know what the definition of insanity is, right?”

“And you would truly be willing to do whatever it took.” Cahill tapped his finger on the desk.

“I killed my first man when I was seventeen, and it wasn’t pretty. I can handle whatever you throw at me. And at this point, it’s a lot easier to have me deal with this for you than it is to arrange the murder of the half a dozen cops who’ve caught onto your scent. Either I make this quietly go away for you, or you make a mess of it and hope nobody notices. I know which sounds like better PR to me. So?” Jess took the photograph back and put it in her pocket. “Do we have a deal?”

Cahill looked at her, then pressed a button on his phone. Probably the intercom. “Get Lockwood in here for me.”

She was probably about to become another body in the river. Great. Well, at least she’d given Amy a proper kiss goodbye.

Lockwood entered, stopping short when he saw her. “What the—”

“Aww, hi, buddy, so good to see you too.” Jess wiggled her fingers at him.

Lockwood stormed up to Cahill. “You want me to take care of her?”

“No.” Cahill was looking at Jess still. “I want you to test her. We have a problem that needs to be eliminated. Have her take care of it. She does well, we’ll bring her on board.”

Lockwood gave Jess a glare of such anger that Jess was tempted to laugh. If nothing but her presence could tick him off this much, this was going to be amusing.

“You wanna lead the way?” she asked.

Lockwood glared as he moved past her. “Follow me.”

Jess focused on keeping her breathing steady and even as she did so. She was entering the belly of the beast, now. And there would be no going back.

* * *

Lucy let Wyatt hold the door open for her as they trooped back into the apartment. Fuck. She didn’t want to go back to her room—technically Wyatt’s room—and sleep all alone. She didn’t want to even be here right now. She wanted to be back at the hospital with Flynn. But visiting hours were over, he was still unconscious, and Denise had practically thrown her and Wyatt out on their asses after they’d been there all day.

She walked over to the couch and collapsed onto it. “I need a drink.”

“I’ll get you something.” Lucy noticed that Wyatt poured only one glass before he walked it to her, handing it over.

“Wyatt?”

Wyatt sank down onto the couch, next to her. “Hmm.”

“Do you ever…” She held up her glass. “You don’t drink much.”

“My old man drank too much. So did I, sometimes. After Flynn I… I sobered up. I had to. Someone needed to stay sharp, keep him from diving out the window.” Wyatt shrugged. “I never… went to any meetings. I have a beer sometimes. Just never more than one. I’m careful.”

Lucy sipped her own drink. He’d poured her scotch. A favorite of Mason’s. “I’d rather it’d been me,” she whispered.

“What?” Wyatt shifted to look at her. “No, Lucy, fuck that. Flynn’d… hell no. He’s lost enough people he cares about.”

“He’s already been through so much, I just… I want to take some of it.”

“Yeah, I know.” Wyatt sank back down. “When we moved here, my… my life didn’t really have meaning. I was just going through the motions. My marriage was falling apart, I had no clue who I was or who I wanted to be, I hated myself, I was angry at my dad and not dealing with it because hey, he was dead, that meant it was supposed to be over, right? I was a mess. And then… there was this man and he was hurting. And my sister loved him. I couldn’t—I couldn’t do anything for her. I couldn’t even get to know her. But I could help this person she loved. And that became—it became my new reason for sticking around. And now—now he’s stuck again and I can’t fix it this time. I can’t help him.”

Lucy nodded, downing the rest of the drink and setting the glass down. “You know what I keep thinking about?”

“What?”

“I skipped prom.”

Wyatt looked at her. “You what?”

“I skipped prom. In high school. I went to a debate competition instead. And I didn’t regret it, not for a moment. I was always a nerd. And then… somehow I tripped into this—this rich, glamorous life. I had a fancy penthouse and more money than I knew what to do with. And I felt… I had what everyone was supposed to want, but it felt, I felt, emptier than I had before, when I’d just been this history nerd who skipped prom.” She smiled, the gesture lighter and easier than she’d expected. “And then I met you two. And I’ve… started to find that nerd again.”

“You weren’t missing anything at prom. Jess and I stayed for a couple dances then left and had sex under the bleachers. It was boring as hell.”

Lucy snorted with laughter. “I just—when my mom died I was so lost. I’m still lost when it comes to her. It feels like… everyone says there’s the five stages of grief but you don’t cycle through them just once. It’s like a wheel that you’re going through over and over. I think I’ve accepted it and then I’m depressed again, or angry again. I was feeling so… empty. And then I started working these cases with you two and I feel like…” She shook her head. “And now he’s hurt. He nearly died. And I just feel empty again. Numb. And that terrifies me.”

Wyatt nodded, his eyes dark as he watched her. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Their shoulders were touching as they sat there, almost but not quite pressed up against each other’s sides. She hadn’t eaten much that day, and the alcohol sloshed around in her stomach, warmed her up quickly. She felt like they were on a tiny raft in a stormy sea, that they’d hauled Flynn out of the water but that there was still no dry land to be found and nothing but the storm around them.

Lucy pushed up, just a little, just enough, and kissed him.

For a moment, he kissed her back, and Lucy swung her leg up and over, straddling him, taking his face into her hands. She rocked her hips, slid her tongue into his mouth, fisted his shirt to try and yank it off. She wanted to feel alive, she wanted to feel _something_, she wanted a refuge from the fear that gripped her heart whenever she thought about Flynn lying in that hospital bed, lying on the ground at the cemetery, his blood on her hands, his life seeping out no matter how hard she pressed down—

Wyatt grabbed her and pushed her back. “Wait, wait, wait, Lucy, no.”

She stared at him. She could feel him hard underneath her, between her legs, she could see in his eyes that she wanted her, why—why was he stopping?

“We can’t—I’m not—” Wyatt swallowed, apparently struggling to string words together. He closed his eyes, breathed in deep through his nose, then opened them again. “I’m not doing this because… because we miss Flynn and we want him.”

“I want you, too.”

“Yeah, but not like this you don’t. When it’s morning and you’re sober you’ll see that. If I’m gonna do this with you, Luce, I’m gonna do it right. And that means Flynn should be here. You know it. I’m not going to do this for the wrong reasons, I’m not going to jump right into this.” Wyatt reached up, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Okay?”

Lucy felt herself crumpling, all the bravado from a moment ago gone, and she fell forward against Wyatt’s chest, sobbing. Wyatt wrapped his arms around her. “Let’s go to bed and sleep, okay?”

“What if they get him in the night?” she whispered. “He’s helpless, he’s not even awake. What if they get him?”

“Denise has guards posted there. This story’s all over the news, it would cause an outrage if he was murdered. It’s going to be okay. Please, Lucy, let’s get some sleep.”

“In your room. Your and Flynn’s room.” It was stupid, but the bed would smell like Flynn, still.

Wyatt nodded, his cheek pressed against the top of her head. “Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.”

She put on one of Flynn’s shirts, because Flynn wasn’t there, and Wyatt wasn’t going to judge her. When she crawled in, pressing up against Wyatt’s chest, Wyatt made a small noise, like she’d stabbed him but he didn’t want to let on.

“What’s wrong?”

Wyatt shook his head. It was hard to see in the dark, but his eyes were wet. “You smell like him.”

Lucy burrowed in and held on, smelling Flynn on the pillow, in the sheets, on the shirt, and squeezed her eyes shut tight, pretending he was right there, just out of reach.

* * *

It had been a goddamn exhausting day, and the only thing Rufus wanted to do was crawl into a hot shower and stay there for about an hour before crawling into his warm bed. Maybe convince Jiya to give him a back massage.

But he had to check up on Mason first, give him the scoop. Amy had been kept somewhat in the loop but Mason deserved to hear about what was going on, too, and he doubted that Lucy had been in enough of a state of mind to think about others.

Mason’s new place was swanky, in the same area as Lucy’s penthouse before it went up in flames. A lot had been preserved from that fire, more than they had initially hoped, but the entire apartment building had to be renovated. Rufus passed by the building on his way to Mason’s, saw the cranes and other construction supplies, the tarp that was up, the scarred walls on top.

Lucy’s apartment. Now Flynn being shot. Were they ever going to get a break? His friends were under attack, constantly, and Rufus just wish he knew how to make it stop. The life of a homicide detective wasn’t easy. You had to deal with dead bodies, with trying to find justice for those who’d been wronged and you didn’t always succeed. But it wasn’t like this. Nothing like this.

Mason opened the door on the first knock. “Ah, Rufus my boy, thank you for coming in.” He opened it wider to let Rufus inside. “Scotch?”

“No, I’m good, thanks. I’m going to go home and shower soon as we’re finished.”

Mason closed the door after him. “How is she?” he asked quietly.

“Lucy? A wreck, according to Denise. I haven’t seen any of them.”

“You didn’t go to the hospital?”

Rufus shook his head, accepting Mason’s offer to sit down. “Someone had to head up the investigation. It’s Lockwood, I’d bet money on it, but we can’t prove it and he’s out in the wind now.”

“It must be a lot of responsibility,” Mason noted. He sat down as well. “You probably feel like all of your friends are counting on you.”

Rufus nodded. “It feels like every lead that we follow is really a dead end. Or it’s a loose thread that we can’t tie up.”

Mason leaned back in his lounge chair. “Sounds like whoever this person is that’s responsible, they’re pretty powerful.”

“Yeah. Raglan, the cop who was assigned to Lorena and Iris’s case, he didn’t even think about giving this guy up until he learned he only had six months left to live.”

“That’s a lot of loyalty. Or fear.”

“Has Lucy kept you informed about the case?”

“Probably more than she should, legally.” Mason gave a small, slow smile. “You know how talkative she is.” He paused. “I… I worry. Flynn was the target today but it wouldn’t be the first time Lucy would be a target. She told me that Vulcan Simmons was involved. I’ve heard about him and I don’t want Lucy anywhere near someone like him. But I know she won’t stop, especially…”

“Especially now that someone she cares about has been hurt. I get it.” Rufus folded his hands together. “You know Vulcan Simmons?”

“By reputation only, fortunately. I was surprised when Lucy told me that… McAllister, was it? One of them—framed him? Of all the drug dealers… he picked the one that even I’ve heard about.”

“Yeah.” That struck Rufus oddly. “Huh. Why _did _McAllister pick Simmons of all people? There are plenty of drug dealers… and Simmons is a nasty piece of work.”

Mason shrugged. “I’m not the detective. I just want Lucy safe. Which unfortunately now means wanting the people she cares about safe.” He paused, contemplating. “Lucy is… not like her mother in many ways. She’s compassionate, soft-hearted, she lifts up everyone she meets. She lights up a room. But in some ways… if anyone dared to mess with the people that Carol cared about, I swear, God help them. And Lucy has that in her too. Truth be told, it scares me. Knowing what she’s capable of if she’s pushed.”

“For what it’s worth,” Rufus said, “I’m here. And I’m going to keep looking into this.”

“Just be careful,” Mason said. “Please, Rufus. I know it’s only been a year or so since we first met but… you truly are family to me. Don’t go in too deep, or you’ll drown.”

“Don’t worry.” Rufus stood up. “I know how to swim.”

Tomorrow, he’d look into Vulcan Simmons. See if there wasn’t more to McAllister’s choosing of him than they’d initially thought.

* * *

He’d thought he knew what it was to ache all over, but clearly he hadn’t, not until now.

His mouth was dry, his eyelids weighed a ton, and his chest felt like someone had rearranged his bones without telling him beforehand. His arms were useless, and his breath rattled around in his lungs insubstantially, making pinpricks of pain like tattoo needles start up everywhere.

“Garcia.” Someone stroked his face. Fuck, he really did ache everywhere. “_Garcia_. He’s awake, Wyatt he’s awake.”

He tried to open his eyes, but it was like he’d sort of forgotten how. Something was pressed between his lips. “Here, drink this.”

A straw, it was a straw. Flynn managed to get his lips around it and suck, water flooding his mouth, soothing his throat as he swallowed. A hand brushed through his hair. “Shh,” the person soothed. He knew that voice. “We’re here. Just drink.”

He finished drinking and turned his head away, sinking back into the pillows. At last he could open his eyes.

Lucy’s tear-stained face greeted him.

_Garcia, no, stay with me, stay with me… don’t you know, I love you… you can’t leave, I love you._

He swallowed. Licked his dry, cracked lips. Forced himself to remember words, how his mouth worked. “Lucy.”

“Yes.” She kept petting through his hair. “You know me.”

“Why…”

“You were—um. The doctors said there might be… issues. You—you flatlined. They didn’t know what that might’ve done, if it affected your brain. You weren’t breathing, so no oxygen, so…” She gave a watery smile. “But you know me.”

He’d know her anywhere.

“How…”

“Two days. The doctors said it might be longer. You’ve got a… a button, here, if you need it, for the morphine drip.” She pressed a device into his hand.

He would probably need that later. Right now he wanted his mind sharp, and the pain would help with that. “Where’s…”

“Right here.”

It took effort, his muscles unused to movement, but he managed to turn his head to see Wyatt, looking just as much of a wreck as Lucy, clutching at the bedsheets like he was about to be ripped out of this realm entirely if he didn’t.

Flynn swallowed a few times. “You look… like shit.”

Wyatt burst into hysterical laughter. “Yeah, you should look in the mirror.”

He probably looked like a ghoul or something. Ugh, he ached all over. He closed his eyes again. “Did we… get the…”

“No.” Wyatt’s tone was bitter. “Rufus is doing everything he can, but no. Right now the case is still open. But you’re okay, and Denise is putting you on disability leave effective immediately. Right now your only job is to rest and get better.”

It was Lockwood. He knew it was Lockwood. Whoever this third cop was, he was still out there and pulling strings with his ill-gotten gains, ready to try and silence those who dug for the truth.

“Shh,” Lucy soothed. “Rest. We’re here for you.”

He wanted to ask, _did you mean it when you said you loved me, _but he ached, and he was tired, and Lucy stroking his hair felt very good, and Wyatt’s hand was on his leg, grounding him, and fuck he really ached, so he pressed the button for the morphine drip and let himself fall under again.

* * *

They pulled up in front of a large, old-fashioned house hidden behind a row of hedges in upstate New York. This was the kind of neighborhood that Jess couldn’t even afford to breathe in, never mind live in.

“Your target’s in there,” Lockwood said. “Make it quick and clean.” He handed her a glock.

Jess checked the weapon was loaded and ready. “Anything else? Is he home alone, what’s his job, does he know self defense?”

“You got a lot of questions.”

“I don’t go in blind. I don’t know what kind of slap-dash assassin work you pull, but I like to know what I’m in for. That means reconnaissance. Information.” Jess looked him evenly in the eye. She had wondered if she would be asked to murder tonight. She’d made her peace with it. _I’m not a good person, Amy. _“Well?”

“You have all the information you need.” Lockwood nodded towards the house. “Go.”

Jess rolled her eyes but got out of the car, gun pointed down, and crept through the hedges. This guy had a lot of security, but luckily for her, most security nowadays was based on one simple principle: get the attention of the police. Silent alarms alerted authorities. Loud alarms alerted, well, everyone. If you knew how those systems worked, and she did thanks to her police work, then you could find a way to hack them. A simple concrete wall would’ve done a lot more to deter her than the BurglarMaster 3000 or whatever they called this stuff nowadays.

And then there was the other way that didn’t even involve hacking: opening the panel on the gate security and pinching two wires together. Lifting a door off his hinges a half an inch and swinging it open. She’d attended a whole seminar on this years ago with Flynn, much to Denise’s dismay.

The house was silent when Jess got into it. The only noise and light came from a television in one of the rooms. She crept down the hall, keeping to the shadows, testing each piece of floor before she put her weight on it.

The man sat facing the television, his back to her. The TV was showing some political rally or other and there were papers spread out all around. Jess moved forward, slowly, steadily, and raised her gun.

It was only once the man made a noise and jolted to his feet that she realized one fatal error: he could see her reflection in the television.

The man turned around. “Who are you?”

Jess recognized him. He was well known in certain political circles. Known as a ‘kingmaker’, the kind of person who never held power himself, not directly, but was in charge of who else got the power and who had it taken away.

Well, at least she wasn’t going to be killing some innocent dentist who volunteered at an animal shelter on the weekends.

“Cahill says hi,” Jess said, and she fired twice, right in the center of the head.

Michael Temple crumpled to the floor and fell facedown in the carpet, blood spattering on the wall and television behind him.

Jess put the safety on her gun and tucked it into the back of her pants, then exited the house. Her hair was tied up so no loose hair falling, she hadn’t touched anything so no fingerprints, she’d had a silencer on and the television had been loud… looked like she was good.

“It’s done,” she said as she got into the car.

Lockwood looked at her through the corner of his eyes. “I’ll check on that. Stay here.”

He locked her into the car while he went into the house. Jess rolled her eyes and waited patiently. She’d turned all the security back on as she’d made her way out, so that nobody would be suspicious, but sure, Lockwood, take your time. It wasn’t like lingering around a crime scene would cause them problems or anything.

Lockwood returned, unlocking the car and sliding into the driver’s seat. “Did I pass my test, professor?” Jess asked.

“I’m taking you back to Cahill,” was all that Lockwood said.

Jess settled herself in her seat and prepared for another long, silent car ride.

* * *

It took a while for him to be lucid enough, and the pain to recede enough, for him to carry on a proper conversation. Every time he woke up, there would be different people there. Flowers steadily built up around him until he felt like he should open a florists’ shop. Rufus came, Jiya came, Mason came, Jess came, Denise came.

Lucy and Wyatt were always there. No matter what time it was when he woke up, they were there.

The day he was able to eat a proper meal again, he ate so fast that Lucy had to warn him not to choke on it. She had circles under her eyes, and so did Wyatt, and both of them had been wearing the same damn clothes for days.

“Go home,” he told them. “Shower. Sleep in an actual bed.’

“Not a chance,” Wyatt replied. “Flynn… we almost lost you. We’re not taking our eyes off you.”

“You’re recovering well,” Lucy noted. She’d been fending off reporters, or so Denise had told Flynn at one point. Apparently he was a bit of a local celebrity for the time being. “We want to be here. To support you.”

“We’ve got time.” Flynn ate more. Hospital food really could suck but right now it was tasting amazing. Or maybe his taste buds were just fried. “I’m on leave, I’m not going anywhere.”

Wyatt and Lucy exchanged a doubtful look. Flynn snorted, and then regretted it when it sent up a flare of pain in his chest. “You don’t believe me?”

“I guess we thought…” Lucy looked at Wyatt, then at Flynn. “The man responsible for Lorena and Iris’s deaths is still out there. He tried to have you killed, that means we’re close. I didn’t think you would let anything stop you from that.”

“I want this case closed,” Flynn replied. “I want justice for my family. But I also… that doesn’t mean that I can’t… I’m not going to be of any use if I can’t even stand up right now. I can want to solve this case and live the rest of my life. Not at first, I couldn’t. But now I can. I’m not giving up. But maybe… maybe this is a chance to take care of other areas in my life. While I recover. Before I go back at it. This case is—it needs to be solved but it’s also a… a lode stone around my neck. And Lorena wouldn’t want that. I owe it to her to be more than just—just tunnel-minded.”

He waited, hoping, staring at Lucy. Would she say it? He’d just given her an opening, surely she would understand and repeat what she’d said at the cemetery.

If she really meant it, that is.

Maybe it was just something born out of pure adrenaline. Maybe she regretted it. Maybe she was hoping that he wouldn’t remember.

“Whatever you want,” Lucy said. “We’ll be there to help you. If you want a break, you deserve one. And when you’re ready to go back to work, we’ll support you.”

She hadn’t said it.

She didn’t mean it.

Flynn nodded, swallowing his disappointment, and focused back in on his food. “Well. Either way I hope I’m out of here soon. If only so you two can stop looking like you’re constantly hungover.”

Wyatt gave an odd, pained laugh, and that seemed to be the end of that.

* * *

Jess stood coolly in front of Cahill. Lockwood had gone in first, presumably to give his report, and then she had been called in. “Well?” she asked.

Cahill pointed at her. “I like your pluck.”

“What did Michael Temple do to piss you off?”

“He tried to control me. He assisted me back in the day and he thought that meant he could make demands on me.”

“Rather stupid of him.”

“Rather.” Cahill smiled. Jess wanted to carve it off his face. “After such a successful audition, I’ve decided that your offered deal has merit. I’ll need regular reports on the team.”

“Understood. And you don’t go after Flynn again.”

“So long as he doesn’t look into his family’s case again. But if worst comes to worst, you must be prepared to do as you’re told.”

She’d never been good at doing as she was told. “I’ll always do what’s necessary.”

“Good.” Cahill paused. “One more thing, I’d like you to keep a close eye on Lucy Preston. She’s been getting herself into danger lately and I don’t care for it. I’d like you to keep her safe.”

That was… odd. “Any particular reason?”

“None that you need to know about.” Cahill smiled. “Off you go! We’ll be in touch.”

Jess ignored the feeling that she had been treated like a precocious schoolgirl, and left without ceremony.

_Temple was an asshole, _she told herself on the drive home. _There’s no way it can be traced to you and he was an asshole._

The light was on in the apartment as she pulled up. Amy was still awake.

Jess lingered in the car, hands gripped around the steering wheel even though she’d put it into park and turned the engine off. This was a very dangerous game she was playing. It was putting her life in danger, as well as the lives of her friends. But weren’t they all already in danger from Cahill? Didn’t the benefits outweigh the risks?

She’d have to be careful how she gathered her evidence. Lockwood didn’t trust her, for one thing. They could expose her murder of Temple, for another. She’d lose her badge and go to jail for the rest of her life.

Nobody had found out about Wyatt’s father. Nobody would find out about this. She was smart. She could do this.

Jess got out of the car and went up to the apartment.

Amy was sitting up in bed, scrolling through her phone. “Where’ve you been? I got worried.”

“Sorry, baby, I had a meeting.” Jess started to get undressed.

“A meeting? At this time of night?” Amy looked at the clock. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been… you’ve been keeping odd hours, since Flynn was shot.”

“I know.” Jess pulled on her pajamas and crawled into bed. “I… I told you, once, that I wasn’t a good person. And you said you didn’t care. So can I ask you—can I ask you to trust me, when I tell you that—that I can’t tell you about this? When I tell you that I’m doing what I have to do, and I’m doing it to help our family?”

Amy looked at her, then set her phone down, a serious expression on her face, and Jess thought that Amy was about to lecture her or say she was disappointed or, oh God, break up with her—but instead, Amy crawled over to her and kissed her.

Jess slid a hand through Amy’s hair. “What was that for?”

“You said our family,” Amy whispered.

Jess could feel her face heating up as she blushed. “They are all family to me. You’re family to me. And I’m going to keep you all safe. Can you trust me?”

“Will you tell me if you’re in over your head?”

Jess nodded.

“Then I trust you.” Amy kissed her again, this time a little more heated, pressing in until their bodies were lined up against each other.

“Mm, does my baby girl want something?”

“Yeah she does.” Amy’s grin was wicked as she yanked Jess on top of her, and Jess let herself forget about Cahill, and promises, and murder, just for a little while.

Later on, though, while Amy was asleep and tucked up against Jess’s chest, Jess wondered again—why was Cahill so concerned about the safety of Lucy Preston?

* * *

Lucy went to therapy.

She didn’t tell Wyatt. She didn’t tell Flynn. She went to an older woman, after trying three others. She wanted someone who was a mother, and she wanted someone who was soft-spoken. This woman, Candace, had a sleek head of gray hair and a stern but not unkind demeanor. Lucy liked her.

“What brings you to therapy?” she was asked, first thing.

_I’m in love with two men and one of them was just shot in front of me and I confessed my feelings and now he doesn’t remember, _was what she had planned to say.

Instead she said, “My mother died two years ago,” and burst into tears.

* * *

Flynn went to therapy.

He didn’t tell Lucy. He didn’t tell Wyatt. He went through about ten of them before he found one that was a sharp eyed, sharp tongued younger woman who called him on his bullshit and looked like she would find a way to kick his ass if so required despite her only being five foot four and he had a good foot of height on her.

“Call me Stacy,” she said when they met. “None of this doctor nonsense. So, what brings you to therapy today, Garcia?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“You’re going to need a bigger pad of paper,” he told her.

Stacy dutifully pulled out a second notebook and held it in the air for him to see, then set it down beside her. “You were saying?”

_I was shot_, he meant to say. _I nearly died._

But rather, what came out was, “Growing up, my mother—she was always sad.”

* * *

Wyatt went to therapy.

He didn’t tell Flynn. He didn’t tell Lucy. He went to a therapist that was known for treating cops, who most of the guys on the force went to when they needed a psych eval. An older man, bald, with a deep bass voice.

Wyatt expected to be told things. Just handed answers. Instead, he got questions. The first being, “why are you here?”

That was a hell of a question.

“I’m in love with my dead sister’s husband,” he said.

* * *

The launch party for Lucy’s book was held about a month after Flynn’s shooting.

Wyatt hadn’t been sure if Flynn should go. A big party with lots of people, lots of noise, flashing cameras? Press everywhere? A party where Flynn would have to be on his feet for hours and keep a smile on, talking to strangers who would press for personal details and make wink-wink nudge-nudge jokes about him being one half of Lucy Preston’s ‘inspiration’, her ‘muse’?

It sounded like a recipe for disaster, if you asked Wyatt.

But Flynn insisted on going to support Lucy. “She hasn’t written at all the last month, and she hates to talk about it,” he said to Wyatt as they got ready in the bedroom.

They were still sharing a bedroom, and a bed. Not that it was very sexy. Flynn had to sleep very still, on his back, and his chest still pained him. Wyatt found himself for the first time in his life waking up constantly in the middle of the night, terrified that Flynn had somehow stopped breathing in his sleep.

Flynn winced as he tried to raise his arms to tie his tie. He was faithfully going to physical therapy, but his mobility was a bit limited. Technically he was as strong as ever, muscle-wise, but it didn’t matter how strong his arms were if it meant lifting something put a strain on the still-healing muscles in his chest.

“Wyatt… could you…” Flynn made a noise of frustration.

“Sure thing.” Wyatt took the tan-and-dark-blue striped tie and wound it around Flynn’s neck. “I can’t believe you’re actually wearing color for once.”

“I wear color.”

“Dark red doesn’t count.”

“It’s burgundy.”

“Would you kill me if I ever said it looked more like maroon?”

“I’d consider it.”

Wyatt smiled, doing the tie up. “So, Lucy made you wear this, didn’t she?” The light blue and the tan suited Flynn well, made his eyes look blue, although Wyatt didn’t think there was any color that Flynn wouldn’t look good in.

“She might have suggested something along those lines. Like she didn’t do the same with you, though.”

Wyatt glanced down at his own pink button-up shirt and snorted. “I look like Greg Brady.”

“Wyatt, I think we’ve established that your fashion snobbery is completely unjustified and that you can’t be trusted in a clothing store.” Flynn tilted his chin up and obediently held still as Wyatt finished off the tie.

He patted the tie to make sure it laid flat, and then forced himself to take a step back, away from Flynn and his dangerous gravitational pull. Flynn hadn’t said anything about the cemetery. Neither Wyatt nor Lucy had wanted to bring it up, to make him relive those painful, traumatizing moments. But he wondered, desperately, as the days rolled by and Flynn didn’t say anything—did Flynn remember?

Wyatt’s therapist told him that when the body experienced pain and injury like Flynn had, to say nothing of the mental trauma that came with it, he might not remember what had happened. He’d flatlined. His brain had been without oxygen. His heart hadn’t been beating. It was perfectly understandable that Flynn wouldn’t remember those few moments before he passed out.

But he wanted to know: did Flynn remember Wyatt comparing him to a spouse? Screaming into the phone, _if it was your husband…_ Did he remember Lucy begging him to live, telling him she loved him?

It was Schrödinger’s love confession. So long as Wyatt didn’t ask, Flynn both heard and did not hear. The moment he asked, either he’d be faced with Flynn saying that he had heard, and was pretending he hadn’t because he didn’t feel the same—or Flynn would say that he hadn’t heard, and Wyatt would have to tell him, and see the look on Flynn’s face when he did.

Call him a coward, but he was nowhere near brave enough to deal with that. Not yet.

“You look good,” Flynn said as he grabbed his jacket. “The pink suits you.”

Wyatt grabbed his own jacket and followed Flynn out into the living room, where Lucy was waiting. Wyatt’s breath caught.

She was in a powder-blue dress with a flared, layered skirt and a corset top, her dark hair done up, a Chinese flower pattern printed onto the silk of her dress. “Geez, Lucy, you look like you’re going to go to the theatre.”

“I wish I was,” Lucy replied. “Instead of going to this party. I need to attend another ridiculous social event like I need a hole in the head.”

“Careful, Lincoln probably said that too, and look where he was when he got his hole in the head.”

“You’re not funny,” Lucy informed him.

“I’m adorable, though, which makes up for it.”

“Almost.” She was smiling, though, so Wyatt counted that as a win. Lucy hadn’t smiled as much since Flynn had been shot. Understandable, obviously, but still. Wyatt just wanted the people he loved to be happy, was that too much to ask of the universe?

“Enough with the banter, kids,” Flynn said. “Let’s get going. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.”

Wyatt couldn’t agree more.

* * *

Not every author got a big launch party when their book was released. J.K. Rowling and Stephen King and a few others. Most authors either had no party, or a small one at the publishing house where it was the team who’d worked on the book and it resembled more of an office birthday party than anything else.

But Lucy was one of the few others, and her party was going to be big.

Flynn winced as they got out of the car and cameras flashed. Given that this was the launch of the first book in a huge new series and there were rumors of a deal with HBO for the Kate Drummond series—not to mention the whole Flynn being shot thing—everyone wanted a piece of this. Flynn was sure that Lucy being a young, beautiful, glamorous person didn’t hurt matters for the press, either.

Lucy herself was glowing as they entered the party, smiling at everyone, chatting with each person like they were an old friend. It was her special charm, her ability to make each person feel valued and like they were the only person in the room while she was speaking to them. Flynn was happy to stand there and just look pretty while Lucy did all the talking.

Wyatt was distinctly, obviously, endearingly uncomfortable with the whole thing. “I feel like a piece of meat,” he murmured.

Flynn knew what he meant. People were staring at them with open curiosity, and quite a few women looked like they wanted to make a beeline for them. He tried to ignore it all. The people weren’t bothering him so much as the sounds of cameras flashing. It was just enough of an unexpected noise to make his pulse spike.

“Ah, boys, I wondered if you’d make it.” Mason walked up, two glasses of champagne in hand. “Here, you look like you could use this.”

Wyatt accepted the champagne swiftly and gratefully, taking a large sip. Flynn held up a hand to decline. “I’d rather stay sober right now, and I have to take my pain meds later.”

“Fair enough. More for me.” Mason winked at him. “How is the recovery going?”

“As well as can be expected,” which was to say, not nearly as fast as Flynn wanted it to. He was trying to be patient but for fuck’s sake, he’d used to go on a run every morning. He’d lifted weights with Rufus, he’d done kickboxing on the weekends. Now he was forced to slow it all way down. He wasn’t even allowed to do a fucking pushup.

Mason looked like he understood what Flynn wasn’t saying. “Well. At least you’re alive and well. You’ll be back to full strength in time.”

Lucy walked over. “They want a photo op with the three of us,” she said, wincing and sounding apologetic. “Connor, can I steal them for a moment?”

“Of course my dear. You look beyond radiant this evening, truly.” He kissed her cheek and Lucy beamed at him.

Mason really did love Lucy, Flynn thought as she led him and Wyatt away, and then he wondered why he’d thought that, at that exact moment, and why it felt so profound to him.

“If you could put Miss Preston in between you two?” the photographer asked, handing Lucy a copy of her book.

Lucy, Flynn noticed, didn’t even look at the book. She held it carefully, like it was a bomb about to go off. He glanced at Wyatt and saw by the worried look in Wyatt’s eyes that he’d noticed the same thing.

“Put your arms around each other, pretend you like each other,” the photographer joked.

Flynn had a few choice things he could say to that, but he kept his mouth shut and simply wrapped his arm around Lucy’s waist. Wyatt did the same, and he could feel Lucy leaning back into them, until they were basically holding her up. Not that the photographer could tell.

Putting on a small smile—what Lucy would probably call a smirk when she saw the photo later—he worried that he wasn’t the only one feeling like he was an imposter at this party. Lucy hadn’t spoken much about Emma since… since it had all happened. Was she uncomfortable with this, now? Feeling like it was unearned? Or was it what she’d said to him as he’d lain there in the cemetery that made her uncomfortable? Maybe he was the problem.

The camera went off a few times, the photographer thanked them, and they moved on.

“You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to,” Lucy said, quickly handing her book off to someone else. “That’s my job. You can leave whenever you want to. People see that you’re here, now, so you’ve done what’s needed.”

Flynn looked at Wyatt and subtly jerked his head to the side, towards the crowd. _Go be adorable and charming, for the love of God._

Wyatt gave him a look like Flynn had just asked him to go swimming with sharks while covered in raw meat. Flynn narrowed his eyes.

Wyatt pouted slightly but gave a sigh and snatched up another glass of champagne from a passing waiter, heading for the crowd. Flynn took Lucy by the elbow and steered her towards the bathrooms. “Walk with me.”

“Do I have a choice?” Lucy pointed out as Flynn controlled their walk.

“You know that you’re a good writer, right?” He turned her around to face him now that they were alone. “I don’t give a damn what your mother did or didn’t do. Your books—your books were a lifeline when I wanted to escape my life and the only other escape available to me was a painful and permanent one. Your mother didn’t do that. You did. You wrote those books.”

“I—” Lucy cut herself off and looked away, her eyes bright, her lips pressed together. She looked back up at him. “She all but bought my place. I didn’t earn this.”

“You were given a free pass on one book. One.” Flynn wasn’t going to let this go easily. “I’m not a literary agent or an editor or the head of a publishing company. But I know a bit about how this all works because you’re very loud when you make phone calls and you’ve complained to me about this industry enough times. How many authors got the greenlight for a series and then didn’t get to publish the rest of it after the first book or two didn’t sell as well as projected? How many authors nearly had their series pulled because of poor sales and pirating? And how few authors actually sell enough copies that they make up their advance and start to see a profit?

“Carol Preston might have gotten you that first book. But how many of us make it in this world without help, huh? How many of us get far on our own? Do you know where the phrase ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ came from?”

Lucy shook her head.

“It’s a joke, Lucy. It started as a joke. Because the idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is so ridiculous and impossible, you’d just fall on your ass. My father got sick of hearing people tell him that as an immigrant that he looked it up. And it’s bullshit.

“What your mother did to Emma, and possibly others, might have been unfair. But you still wrote that book. It’s still a damn good book. And all the books that came after are on you. The good sales on your first book are on you. She could get it published for you but she couldn’t buy every copy for you.”

He took her by the shoulders and turned her out so that she could see the party. “All of this is for you. Who you are, Lucy Preston. Don’t make the mistake of letting someone like Emma Whitmore take that from you.”

“All these people expect me to be someone,” Lucy said. “My mother expected me to be like her. But I’m not sure.”

“You don’t have to be anyone. And who cares what they want from you or who they think you are? We know who you are. We’re your family, and we know. Lucy…”

She looked back at him.

“You’re allowed to be proud of yourself.”

Lucy gave him an odd smile. “And to think, I annoyed you when we first met.”

“Immeasurably.”

“You were awful.”

“Very.”

She turned back to look at the party. Her hand found his, squeezed, and then she was moving forward, slipping away.

Wyatt found him a few minutes later. “I’ve never been asked about my dating life so much in my goddamn life,” he mumbled, tipping his head forward to rest it on Flynn’s shoulder.

“About Lucy or me?”

“Ugh, both, either, take your pick. Can we go home now?”

Flynn watched as Lucy started telling everyone about the time they found a dead dominatrix in the park and Wyatt had tried and failed to go undercover. “Not just yet.” He wanted to watch her for a little while longer.

* * *

Flynn was passed out on the couch when she got home.

Wyatt was awake, sitting on the lounge chair, reading _Persuasion _because he and Flynn had some kind of bet going where Flynn was attempting to give Wyatt an education in good literature and Wyatt was attempting to be as annoying and stubborn about it as possible.

“Hey.” Wyatt set the book aside. “How was it after we left?”

“Boring. Everyone’s got an agenda at those things.” Lucy set her purse down. “How is he?”

“Tired. He wanted to wait up for you but…” Wyatt shrugged.

Flynn was trying not to push himself too hard, Lucy knew that, but his body tired easily because it was still healing.

Lucy walked over to him, sliding out of her heels, her gaze sliding over him, checking for signs that this was more than just fatigue. According to the doctors Flynn was healing well, the excellent shape he was in pre-shooting helping with his recovery, but Lucy still worried. She couldn’t help it.

_Do you remember? _She found herself wanting to ask the question so much, constantly, every day, but she was also terrified of the answer. When Flynn had first woken up her only thought had been that he was alive and well. But after that… soon after that, she had started to wonder, and had waited for Flynn to say something, to indicate… but he hadn’t. He’d never said anything.

Either he remembered and he didn’t want to talk about it, or he didn’t remember at all, and Lucy didn’t know which idea was worse.

“He needs to sleep in a bed,” she whispered.

Wyatt nodded, standing up, and Lucy crouched down, running a hand through Flynn’s hair, noting the longer length of it, the stubble on his cheeks. He’d always been so professional, never letting whatever inner turmoil he was in show in his dress, and now he looked both wearier and softer.

Flynn’s eyes fluttered open. “Hey, sleepy,” Lucy murmured. “You’re too old to be passing out on the couch.”

“You sure know how to make a guy feel special,” Flynn replied, but he got himself to his feet.

“You need me to remind you where it is?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn flipped him off, but Lucy and Wyatt watched carefully as he walked around the couch and went into the bedroom, searching for signs of dangerous stiffness.

“He’s getting better,” Wyatt said.

It was true. Flynn no longer had to wear bandages. The stitches had come out four days ago. He was moving more fluidly, the stiffness slowly going away. He faithfully attended physical therapy even though Lucy knew it annoyed the hell out of him.

“I know,” she replied. But she wasn’t satisfied, she couldn’t relax, because even if Flynn ran a marathon the next morning that didn’t change the fragility of his skin, his muscles, his bones. That didn’t change the fact that someone had tried to kill him, and could very well try again, and that they’d come far too close to succeeding.

* * *

Flynn found himself feeling uncharacteristically nervous as he stood in the elevator with Lucy and Wyatt. It had been two months, and he’d finally been cleared psychologically and physically to be put back on active duty.

Somewhere, lurking in Wyatt’s phone, was a video of Flynn doing push-ups with Lucy sitting on his back, typing away on her computer like her seating arrangement wasn’t steadily moving up and down. Flynn had told him to delete it because he really didn’t need the world knowing how dramatic and competitive he got when Wyatt challenged him.

It wasn’t that he thought he wouldn’t fit in or anything now. It was just that he had been gone, gone for two months, and he wasn’t sure about… about how others would view him. He didn’t want to be treated any differently than before. He wasn’t fragile, or special, he was just himself. He didn’t want anyone treating him with kid gloves.

The elevator doors opened and he stepped out into the bullpen, Wyatt and Lucy following.

Rufus saw him first, at his desk, and stood up. “Flynn!”

Jess turned around, saw him, and stood up too, grinning.

Then the two assholes looked at each other with matching mischief in their eyes, and started applauding.

Flynn flipped them off, but then to his surprise, others started joining in too. Lucy was absolutely beaming and Flynn saw that while Rufus and Jess were definitely grinning in that prank-pulling kind of way, the others standing around weren’t. They were all just smiling, like they were relieved. Like they were proud.

“Everyone missed you,” Wyatt said, his voice rough and quiet.

Flynn swallowed around the lump that formed in his throat. “All right, all right, settle down. You’re gonna make a guy blush. I didn’t miss any of you, at all, for the record.”

Everyone laughed and started to go about their day, shouts of “welcome back” and “glad to have you” echoing through the room.

Rufus and Jess walked up, smirking.

“You’re both the worst,” Flynn informed them.

“We sure are,” Rufus confirmed. “Oh, you’ll want to go down to the morgue, Jiya’s got something for you.”

“A case?”

“She didn’t say.”

Flynn looked at Lucy and Wyatt, who both shrugged. “Go on,” Lucy said. “I’ll make sure your desk isn’t overrun with ants.”

“A guy leaves a donut there one time…” Wyatt mumbled.

Flynn nodded at them both, his chest tight in a way that had nothing to do with his wound, and took the elevator down to Jiya.

Jiya was sitting at her desk filling out paperwork when he got there. “I heard you had something for me?”

She shot up out of her chair. “You’re back!”

“I said I would be.”

“I know you did, but…” Jiya cleared her throat, shook herself a little, then hugged him.

Flynn hugged her back, a bit surprised. “I’m in one piece. You’ve seen me since then.”

“I know, but… it’s one thing you see you in sweats on the couch, it’s another to see you back… here.” Jiya sniffled briefly, then pulled away, her eyes bright. “Um. I got you something. It’s… probably really morbid, but, I thought you’d like it.”

She opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a necklace chain. Hanging on the end of it was a silver design, two wings, and in the middle, joining them, was…

“It’s the one that hit you,” Jiya admitted. “I… I have contacts, in the hospital, I asked and begged and called in a favor or two but I got it.”

It was a bullet. The bullet. The one they’d dug out of him.

“They’re raven wings.” Jiya’s voice was thick and she cleared her throat. “In, um, a lot of cultures, ravens are harbingers of death. The Morrigan in Ireland, she’d take the form of a raven. In your own culture you have the Raven King.”

Flynn took the necklace from her, holding it up. “It’s well done.”

“Well, yeah, duh, only the best for you.” Jiya shrugged, looking self-conscious, her shoulders hunching. “This—this thing tried to beat you. And it didn’t. You’re still here. You _won_.”

Flynn undid the clasp and slid the necklace on, doing it back up again. It sat cold against his skin, under his shirt, but he knew it would warm up. “Thank you, Jiya.”

“You like it?”

He nodded. “I like it very much, Jiya. Thank you.”

Jiya hugged him again, even tighter than before, and this time, Flynn hung on for a little while.

* * *

Lucy relaxed back into her chair as Amy passed her a glass of water. “I feel like we haven’t had a sister day in ages.”

“We haven’t had a sister day in ages,” Amy replied, sitting down.

“Where’s Jess?” Lucy asked, looking around. She’d suggested a restaurant but Amy had insisted on cooking for her.

“She’s out, she’s got a thing.” Amy passed her the salad. “How’s Flynn doing now that he’s back?”

“He’s adjusting. Denise wants him to start slow and Flynn’s frustrated by it.” Lucy paused, filling her plate. “I get how he feels because that’s how I would be but I’m also still terrified for him. How do we know that this person won’t try again? It’s been months, I know, but…”

“Maybe they decided it would be too much publicity? That the scene was too hot?” Amy suggested. “Flynn’s shooting made all the papers, and by now everyone knows that he’s one half of the inspiration for your new book series.”

“So, what, they’ll wait until all the fuss has died down and do it again!?” Lucy stabbed at her food with her fork a little more viciously than strictly necessary.

Amy watched her quietly, which was odd for Amy. Amy was hardly ever quiet.

“Lucy,” she said at last, right as Lucy was taking a sip of water, “are you ever going to admit that you’re dating them?”

Lucy choked on her water, spewed it back into the cup, and proceeded to have a coughing fit.

“Great timing, Ames,” she choked out.

Amy thumped her on the back. “I’m serious. You live with them, you spend all your time with them, you’ve finally started writing again and you’re showing them the first drafts—the first drafts! Lucy! You never let anyone see your first drafts, you would hide your files from Mom under fake names so she wouldn’t find them!”

Lucy waited until her coughing had subsided, let Amy get her a new glass of water, and took a few small, bracing sips. “We’re not dating.”

“Right. And Jess and I are just gals being pals.”

Lucy set down her glass. “I’m serious. I…” She ran her finger around the rim of the glass. “I told Flynn how I felt. While he was shot. I thought he was dying, and I was just, my brain, it all just—the only thing I could think was that he couldn’t die, because I loved him. He wasn’t allowed. I blurted it all out, and then—then when he woke up, he didn’t say anything about it. He’s never mentioned it.

“And the doctors say that he might’ve had a bit of memory loss from the trauma and from, well, from flatlining for two—he was _dead_ for two minutes, they don’t call it that but that’s what you are! You’re dead! And then they shoot you full of electricity to force you to come back! But he doesn’t remember and it’s like—it’s like we’re operating on two different timelines, I’m in the one where I said, hey, I love you, and he’s in the one where I didn’t, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

She realized she was raising her voice and struggled to bring it back down. Amy put her hand over Lucy’s, her gaze warm and sympathetic.

Lucy struggled to finish. “Wyatt and I are… we’re something? We don’t—I kissed him, the night Flynn was shot. I was so—so upset and desperate, and I felt so empty inside, I just wanted to stop existing. And he was there. I wanted to—to do more, but Wyatt’s in love with Flynn too and he said not like that, not without Flynn, and he’s right, and I agree… but since then we’ve just kind of been in this—this limbo. Wyatt and I aren’t—we aren’t dating. We haven’t done anything romantic or sexual since then. We’re just… waiting.”

“Waiting for Flynn.”

Lucy nodded.

“Until what?” Amy asked, taking her hand away. “Until he magically figures out how you two feel? Until he miraculously gets those memories back? How are you supposed to do anything if you don’t tell him what you want?”

“If he felt something, he’d tell us. Flynn’s not one to beat around the bush.”

“I think you’re overestimating Flynn’s romance skills,” Amy countered.

“His family’s killer is out there.” Lucy took a few bracing breaths. “And he’s said that he doesn’t want his life to only be about that pain. But I can’t… I can’t, Amy. I’m not brave, like that.”

“I think you are,” Amy replied. “I think you can be. But it’s your choice, not mine.”

Lucy had to accustom herself to the odd feeling that Amy might, just might, be disappointed in her. “I have a lot to work on with myself, too,” she admitted, her voice low. “I’ve just started writing again and… I’m trying to find a way not to hate it. Not to hate myself. I want to enjoy creating again. I want to… I’m in therapy.”

Amy’s head shot up. “You’re what? When?”

“A few days after Flynn woke up. I just—I was going to go and talk to—about all that. But instead I found myself talking about Mom.” Lucy took a deep breath. “I’ve been doing a lot of talking about her. It’s been helping.”

“Oh, Luce.” Amy squeezed her hand again. “I’m so glad.”

Lucy squeezed her hand back. “I… I want to be someone that I’m really… proud to be. I want to be certain of myself. So I can own my triumphs and my mistakes.”

Amy smiled at her. “You told your therapist all about how I put green hair dye in your conditioner for April Fool’s Day, didn’t you.”

Lucy laughed, grateful for the conversation shift. “First of all, you little brat…”

_I think you are. I think you can be._

She wasn’t so sure.

* * *

Jiya walked into the bedroom and immediately frowned upon seeing her boyfriend with papers spread out all over their bed. “What’s all that?”

“A project.”

Jiya walked over and picked up a picture. It took her a moment, but then she recognized it. “That’s Vulcan Simmons.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s driving a towncar.”

“He sure is.”

“Rufus.” Jiya set the picture down. “Why are you investigating this? Does Denise know about this?”

“Not really. It’s been months, no leads, she had to declare the case cold and shelve it. This is something I’ve been doing on my own.” He looked up at her and seemed to finally register that Jiya wasn’t all that happy with him. “What?”

“Did you not think about the fact that the last person who investigated this—our friend—was shot and nearly died?”

“Why do you think I’m doing this?” Rufus countered. “It’s only a matter of time until they come after Flynn again. I have to find proof and stop them before they succeed!”

“What if you get killed in the process!?” Jiya shoved some of the papers aside to sit down next to him. “Rufus, you said you were going to resign, this is the opposite of that, this is throwing yourself right in the path of danger!”

“Look.” Rufus pulled out some papers. “Simmons has been upping his game recently, and I mean insane, money laundering and drug money and—it’s absolutely nuts. No paper trail, you have no idea how hard it was to get this kind of stuff, I haven’t used my computer skills like this in years. And guess where the checks he’s making out go to? A Super PAC called Freedom Forward. Who do we know who’d need a Super PAC!? Run with drug money, it’s a political war chest that won’t ever be exhausted! Cahill can do whatever he wants, he won’t be beholden to any special interest groups—”

“And he _can kill you_,” Jiya snapped, wondering how Rufus wasn’t taking this seriously. “I’m serious, Rufus, this—what if they caught onto your digital footprint, what if their security systems noticed your hacking, they will kill you!”

“And they’ll kill Flynn if we don’t stop them!” Rufus replied, his temper starting to rise as well. Jiya usually loved how stubborn he was but not in this moment. “We can’t just sit idly by and hope that it will get better, and hope that they won’t come after Flynn.”

“Good will win out, the truth will come to light, but you shouldn’t have to put yourself in the crosshairs to do it.”

“The laws of the universe being good didn’t get me to where I am,” Rufus said, jabbing his finger into the papers on the bed. “It didn’t take care of my family, or get me into the academy, I did that. I’m not going to just say, hey, my thoughts and prayers are with you, and then not take any damn action.”

Rufus, Jiya knew, was an atheist. They’d had a few… intense discussions, so to speak, on the matter.

Jiya took a few deep breaths. Counted backwards from ten in her head. Did that until she was calmer. Then she took Rufus’s hands. “I lost my father… so quickly. It felt like I blinked and he was sick, and then I blinked again and he was gone. And after he died, Mom went back to Lebanon. That left me all alone. I finally have a family again. I don’t want Flynn in danger any more than you do, but I can’t lose you, either.”

“People like Vulcan Simmons keep people like me, like my brother, in a prison without walls,” Rufus said, his voice quiet and aching. “I grew up seeing the boys around me, seeing how they thought they had no other choice. He could be doing so much to advocate, to make things better, and instead—he’s a turncoat. A traitor. He keeps us down and dependent just as much as rich, blue blood one percenters like Cahill do. He’s living the stereotype and I won’t fucking have it. Flynn’s my friend, and he’s in danger, and if I can take down some sons of bitches while I’m helping him, then it’s a worthwhile risk to me. And I love you, but you don’t get to decide if I put my life in danger or not. I do.”

Jiya took a moment, then nodded. She would be saying the same thing in his place, she reminded herself. “Okay. Please—just, please be careful about this. Be smart about this. They had you once, and—they’re not going to waste their time trying to interrogate you next time.”

“Then there won’t be a next time,” Rufus promised her. “I’m close. I can’t prove that Freedom Forward is tied to Cahill. And I have no solid evidence that’s where Simmons’ money is going—nothing solid enough to bring to court, anyway. But I know where to look, now. We’ll get him.”

Jiya held in her sigh. She trusted Rufus’s drive and his brilliance. “Okay.”

Rufus kissed her. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

Jiya wished she could convince the small, terrified ball of cold in her chest of that.

* * *

Jess winced as the burner phone rang. She’d just put her feet up for a night of reading while Amy was out on call. “Lockwood, I told you, I’m in a happy, committed relationship.”

“I hate you,” Lockwood replied, without a trace of humor in his voice.

“Well, when you call a girl up at seven p.m. you can’t blame her for getting ideas.” Jess flipped through a few pages in her book, not really seeing what was in front of her. “What does the boss need this time?”

“We need you to be a bodyguard at a meeting this evening. I’ll text you the address. There will be a lot of big people there, so safety and discretion are key.”

“Aren’t they always key?” Jess flipped through the book to a page and circled certain letters, spelling out the time and date. Nobody would think to go through this book except Amy, who was going to read it after her. “Just tell me where and I’ll be there.”

“Be packing.”

“Yeah, I’ll grab the strap on.”

Lockwood didn’t tell her to eat shit, but she could feel it emanating from him right before he hung up the call.

Jess stood up. All right. Leave the message in the book for Amy in case the worst happened, grab her gun and her sturdy boots, and get back to wishing Lockwood trusted her enough not to pat her down every time. She could’ve gotten away with wearing a wire if it wasn’t for him.

Well, fuck Lockwood. She was settling nicely into the future role of key witness for the prosecution. Soon she’d figure out a way to get evidence to tie this all up in a bow.

The meeting was at a swanky estate out of the city, because Cahill never did anything by halves. Jess had never attended one of these things before. She assumed it would be a couple of the big players who were partnering with Cahill, probably men the likes of Michael Temple only much more likely to fall in line. She showed up, got the rundown from Lockwood, and was told she’d be in the meeting room itself, making sure nobody’d brought a wire or was looking gun shy about Cahill’s plans.

“They’re all Rittenhouse, but Cahill’s found it never pays to be too careful,” Lockwood told her.

Jess nodded. She could handle babysitting a few old men.

Except this wasn’t just a few old men.

Jess took up her post just inside the door to the large, oak-paneled meeting room, the old chandelier tinging everything slightly yellow with its light, and watched as, one by one, people were shown in by the butler or footman or whoever the polite-speaking guy with the British accent was.

Jess swallowed. There were ten, no, fifteen, no, twenty of them. Mostly older men, all white. A few younger men, a few women. She recognized some of them as political players—she’d started getting obsessively into politics since working for Cahill, trying to figure out who he might have her target next, who might be an ally. But most of them weren’t politicians. They were CEOs, stockholders. People who had a career that could most accurately be called ‘being rich’.

This was Rittenhouse? All of them? Her heart pounded in her throat. This was so much bigger, so much more, than they’d thought.

“Benjamin, good to see you, as always,” one of the men said, shaking Cahill’s hand. “Feeling nostalgic today?” He gestured at a ring on Cahill’s hand.

“Ah, yes, it’s the anniversary of my graduation. Summa cum laude,” Cahill replied.

Jess focused on the ring on his finger. It was a class ring. Why did it look familiar to her? She hadn’t seen Cahill wear it before, but she had definitely seen that exact ring somewhere. Where’d she see a fancy class ring? Wyatt never owned anything like that, neither did she… it wasn’t connected to a case…

It plagued her all the way home, adrenaline thrumming through her veins. Rittenhouse was entrenched in the upper class, all the rumors of an evil group of rich people trying to run the world were true, and now the only thing keeping Flynn safe was her promise to keep him away from his family’s case and they were nothing more than bugs, nuisances, to Cahill and those others… what had she gotten herself into…

She pulled up in front of the apartment, not surprised to find it dark. Amy’s shift was supposed to go until the morning. Good. She needed a bit before she was… herself again.

Jess dropped her keys into the small bowl they kept them in, where they clattered against the wood of the bowl and the metal of—

Jess froze.

—the metal of Carol Preston’s class ring from Stanford.

It was one of the items that had survived the fire, and one of the few things of her mother’s that Amy had wanted to keep. Lucy took most of the rest that remained. Jess picked it up, holding it to the light. She’d glanced at this ring every day for months, not really registering that she was memorizing it, until now. Until she’d seen that exact same ring on Benjamin Cahill’s finger.

_I’d like you to keep a close eye on Lucy Preston._

_Any particular reason?_

_None that you need to know about._

Jess dropped the ring back into the key bowl. It was an insane, far-fetched theory, but… maybe she should ask Amy about her parents, about her mother. Just in case.

* * *

“I don’t need to practice shooting,” Flynn said as Wyatt signed them in.

“Oh, so you’re scared to go up against me.” He checked his piece, nodded at the guy working the front desk, and then waited for Flynn to take care of his stuff.

“I’ve always been a better shot than you, Wyatt, having a stiff shoulder for a few weeks isn’t going to change that.”

“Mmm, you sure?” Wyatt started to head for the range, confident that Flynn would follow him, all of Flynn’s bitching aside.

“It’s not about how strong you are, it’s about your brain, it’s about judging distance and hand-eye coordination—”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Wyatt set himself up and put a target on the line, pushing the button to send it back.

Grumpy or not, Flynn needed to practice his shooting. Wyatt had been talking with his therapist about PTSD and his therapist had warned him that it was difficult, no matter how strong-willed the person was, to acclimate themselves to something that had once been a source of pain and fear. Flynn had seemed fine so far at work but he also hadn’t had a gun drawn on him yet, and Wyatt wanted Flynn to be as ready as possible when that happened—because it was a question of when, on their job, not a question of if.

“If anyone needs help with his shooting, it’s you,” Flynn noted as Wyatt prepared to fire.

“Are you really gonna just stand there the whole time and teach me to shoot like I’m in the academy again?” Wyatt snapped, a little annoyed.

Flynn snorted. “I’m not teaching you anything. But your wrist is a bit…”

“Oh my God.” Wyatt passed the gun to Flynn. “Go on then, show me how sharp you still are. If you can hit the bull’s eye every time, I’ll let you teach me how to shoot.”

Flynn smirked at him, the gun whipping up so fast Wyatt almost missed it. _One, two, three, four, five, six_.

The fucker was even doing it one-handed, which was far from proper police procedure but was exactly the procedure you wanted to use if you were showing off and being a snarky dickhead.

Flynn whistled as he pressed the button to bring the target sheet back up to them, and Wyatt swore under his breath. Six bull’s eyes.

“You were saying?” Flynn asked him, not even bothering to hide his grin.

“All right.” Wyatt reloaded the gun and took up the position. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Your stance, for one thing.” To his shock and horror, Flynn stood directly behind him, pressed up against Wyatt’s back, his arms wrapping around him. As he adjusted Wyatt, he murmured, “We should get Lucy out here. She needs to learn how to handle one of these.”

“She shouldn’t have to know how to handle one of these.”

“I know.” Flynn’s voice, his mouth, was right at his ear. Fuck. All Flynn had to do to make this something else entirely would be to wrap his arm around Wyatt’s waist, his hand sliding down… cupping…

Wyatt’s finger twitched violently and the gun went off. “Shit. Shot too soon.”

“It’s okay, Wyatt, we can just cuddle.”

Wyatt looked up at the ceiling and prayed to a God he wasn’t sure existed to please, please get him out of here.

For once, God answered. Their phones rang.

Flynn stepped back, pulling his cell out. “Detective Flynn.”

Wyatt answered his, and knew he was learning the same thing that Flynn was. “We’ve got a case.” Dead body in an alley. Fun.

“Rain check? Y’know they say practice helps you last longer…”

“I’m gonna dump _your _body in an alley, Flynn, see if I don’t.”

* * *

Lucy was just running into the precinct when Rufus caught her. “Hey, Lucy, you got a moment?”

“Only if it’s a moment, I need to meet Flynn and Wyatt, there was a body…”

“Yeah, I know, Jiya’s there. Listen.” Rufus pulled her into one of the briefing rooms and closed the door. “I need to show you something.”

He pulled a photograph out of his pocket and handed it to her. “This is the only copy of this photo that exists. Jess had a copy made but she told me she had to burn it. I’m not sure why, I think in case Amy found it.”

Lucy took the photograph. “Why would it matter if Amy found it?”

“Because if you know about this, you’re in danger.” Rufus nodded at the photograph. “Any of those men look familiar to you?”

Lucy stared down at the photograph. “Um, yeah, sure, that’s Benjamin Cahill, he’s a senator.” The photo was taken over twenty years ago so the man obviously looked a lot younger, but, still. It was him.

“What about the other two?” Rufus pressed.

“They look a bit familiar, but I can’t place them.” Lucy handed the photograph back. “Why? Who are they?”

“That’s John Raglan and Gary McAllister,” Rufus said.

Her heart felt like it had dropped into her stomach, her blood running cold. “The two who—but—”

“We were trying to find the third cop. And we found him. Jess and I.”

“He’s a senator,” Lucy hissed. She glanced around, unable to shake the feeling that they were being watched even though she knew that was impossible. “Rufus!”

“How do you think he got to where he was so quickly? Look up his history, Lucy, his rise was meteoric. Youngest police commissioner in history, now he’s a senator? That ransom money from the mafia went somewhere, and now we know where.”

“And he had Lorena and Iris killed to keep that secret safe.” She felt genuinely sick and struggled not to throw up. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’ve been looking into it. Doing research. And if anything happens to me, someone else needs to know what I know.”

“Why not Wyatt and Flynn?”

“Because Wyatt can’t keep a secret to save his life and if we tell Flynn, I know him, he’ll run straight at Cahill. He won’t let anything stop him. And he’ll get himself killed.”

Lucy’s heart wanted to beat right out of her chest. “I don’t want to keep a secret from them, Rufus.”

“It won’t be forever. Just until I can get evidence, real evidence, something that proves Cahill ordered the hit on Lorena.” Rufus’s face was pleading. “You know him, Lucy. We have to keep this secret to keep him safe. Just for now.”

Lucy swallowed. She could still feel Flynn’s blood on her hands when she closed her eyes. She could still hear him struggling to breathe, the awful rattling, wheezing sound in his chest. She could still see the darkness taking over his eyes. The awful sallow tinge to his skin as he’d laid in the hospital bed, the bruises all over, the doctors saying _he flatlined_.

“All right,” she found herself saying. “But just for now.”

She hoped, if he found out, that Flynn would forgive her for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episodes used for this chapter are Rise (4x01) and In the Belly of the Beast (6x17).
> 
> Michael Temple is a character taken from Timeless Season Three (timeless-season-four.tumblr.com) created by qqueenofhades.
> 
> And for you fans of The Thing With Shadows is (They Come from Light, from Somewhere)... yes, Lucy's and Flynn's therapists are a shout out. *wink*


	11. Chapter 11

Jiya bent down in front of the woman’s body. It was an alley, grim, filthy, and somehow that was so much worse than all the times she found a body in the person’s bedroom or office or some place else. Yes, there was a sadness, a perverseness, to someone being murdered in a place they were familiar with, a place where they felt safe. But at least it _was _familiar. At least it was clean. Nobody deserved to die and be left like this, like a piece of trash.

She started taking her photos and measurements, cataloguing them all for the file as the CSU worked around her. She was usually the first on the scene with the unit, before the detectives got there. That meant she got to have a little… moment with the body, with the shell that had once been a person.

Jiya knew that Rufus had his own, not-too-kind thoughts about the idea of a higher power. But for all that she sometimes argued with God more than prayed, she couldn’t shake the conviction somewhere inside of her that there was an order, an intention to the universe, a great and ineffable love that comforted her in dark times.

And so when she first found the body, before she started her examination, she took a moment, and she had a conversation with that higher power, and she tried to feel that love. Tried to believe that this person was feeling that love, and was being valued, and was no longer in pain. Tried to say a few words for them, in case nobody else would—to show that she respected them and wasn’t viewing them as nothing more than an object.

“Brought you coffee,” Rufus said, passing Jiya a cup.

Jiya stood, looking down at the girl. She was young, no older than Jiya herself. Blonde, in a nightgown, with abrasions on her feet. She’d been running—running scared, right out of wherever she lived. Ed Turner, the man who’d called the body in, had found her in the early morning when he’d gone to take out his trash before the garbage men could come to collect the bins. That meant she’d been killed at night, in the dark and the cold. Nobody around to hear or care about her screams.

“She was strangled,” Jiya said, accepting the coffee and a kiss on the cheek from Rufus. “And she knew her pursuer was after her, scrapes and mud on her feet show she ran from somewhere—she probably lived nearby.”

“Great, I’ll let the others know and we can start canvasing the area.”

Jiya nodded, staring down at the girl. She was so young. But more than that, something about her tugged at Jiya. What was it?

Rufus was writing in his notebook, and she saw him pause as he noticed her confusion. “What’s up?”

“I’m not sure,” Jiya admitted. “Something about her is… familiar.” Yes, familiar, that was it. “But… I don’t know why.”

“Maybe she looks like someone famous,” Rufus suggested.

“Maybe,” Jiya conceded, even though she knew that wasn’t it. There was something else that was making her have this odd, almost-but-not-quite déjà vu feeling.

If only she knew what it was.

* * *

Denise seemed surprised when Flynn texted her to ask if he could stop by the house—although ‘house’ was a fairly loose term when it came to living in the middle of New York City where your building was directly connected to the buildings around it. But she said that it was no problem, and when she opened the door to him, he found that tea was already boiling on the stove and there were some cookies (undoubtedly made by Michelle, since Denise and Lucy were both card-carrying members of the ‘couldn’t cook for shit’ club) on the kitchen counter.

“I’m sorry it’s late,” Flynn apologized as he took off his shoes and jacket.

Denise pursed her lips together. “I know you wouldn’t be stopping by if it wasn’t important. Is everything okay at the apartment?”

Flynn nodded. “Yes, fine. As far as I can tell. Lucy’s overworking herself, but that’s nothing new.”

There were so many ghosts between the three of them that Flynn wondered sometimes if they would ever stop feeling haunted. At least the therapy was helping him, somewhat. It was a slow process.

Denise gestured for him to sit and then got out some mugs for the tea. “What brings you here, then? Something about Lorena and Iris’s case?”

“Sort of.” Flynn accepted the tea and declined sugar. “I was… I was wondering if you would mind… talking to me about what it was like. When it happened to you. The… gunshot.”

Denise paused for a moment, then brought the plate of cookies over and sat down. “Ah.”

“Yes.”

Flynn didn’t know details—all he knew was that in the ‘80s, Denise had been a beat cop on Reagan’s detail the day he’d been shot, and she’d sustained a pretty harsh bullet wound when the other police and the Secret Service had returned fire.

“My mother wanted me to quit the force,” Denise admitted. Her smile was bittersweet. “It turned into a mess. There was a boy, a very respectable one, picked out for me, and Mother wanted me to marry him and stop… chasing this daydream. It got quite harsh, on both our sides.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Denise sighed. “I became a cop because of my father. My mother thought I was dishonoring him by doing that. I wonder which one of us was right, sometimes. But I do know for certain which path makes me happier, and it’s this one. In an odd way I’m grateful to what happened because it forced my mother and I to talk about our issues. I was always a bit of a coward when it came to her, scared of her rejection.” She gave him a shrewd look. “But you’re not here to talk about that, are you?”

Flynn shook his head.

Denise nudged the plate of cookies towards him. They looked like ginger snaps. “I jumped at every sudden sound, whether I wanted to or not. I felt like a coward each time. This was what I had trained for, the thing I’d always known was possible. I felt like I was a child for handling it like this. I didn’t understand, at first, that I wasn’t choosing to be like this—that this was something that I couldn’t in any way control.”

“I don’t like feeling scared,” Flynn admitted. “When you’re scared… it means something else has power over you. And I don’t want anything to have power over me if I didn’t allow it to.”

Denise nodded. Flynn took a cookie. Yup, ginger snap. He dipped it in the tea and ignored Denise’s eye roll in response. “I know that everyone says this, but it’s true, the only thing that can help is time. Your body isn’t scared, Flynn, it’s trying to protect you. Our greatest strength is our ability to adapt and overcome, and that’s what your body is trying to do for you. You have to teach it that jumping or hiding is not the way to do that, just like you had to teach yourself how to write, how to ride a bike, how to drive. It’s training, that’s all.”

“Did it help you to think of it that way?”

“Yes,” Denise said bluntly. “Is it helping you to think of yourself as weak?”

Flynn glared down at his tea.

“Give yourself a break, Flynn.” Denise leaned back in her chair a bit. “I swear the one thing you, Wyatt and Lucy all have in common is your inability to extend any kind of compassion towards yourselves. You’d never let either of them be so hard on themselves. How are you any different? You’ve endured more than anyone else I know. Take a deep breath.”

Flynn dunked another cookie in the tea, just to spite her. Denise’s lips twitched. “Also, take up a hobby. I started knitting. Learn guitar or paint or something.”

“I can play piano.” Mom had dragged him to lessons every week for five years.

“Then get back into it. Create something, do something with your hands. It helps. Michelle gardens. Mark plays the violin. Olivia knits with me.”

Flynn nodded, and finished off his tea. “Thank you.”

“You are my friend, Garcia,” Denise said. “Whether I do a good job of showing it is up for debate, I’m sure. But you are my friend. And I’m yours.”

“I know,” Flynn replied. He knew Wyatt and Lucy carried a bit of resentment towards Denise for some of her actions towards him, but he didn’t bear her any ill-will. They were diametrically opposed, in some ways, and they were both stubborn and hated to admit when they were wrong. But Denise looked after her own.

He stood up, swiping a third cookie. “I appreciate it.”

Denise looked him up and down. “You don’t believe it right now and that’s okay. But it will get better. Your body will remember. You’ll get control again.”

Flynn’s mouth twisted up. “Someday I’ll be able to listen to Christmas carols again?”

Denise didn’t give into his attempt at humor. “Yes.”

Flynn nodded at her, once, and then put his shoes and jacket back on. Denise didn’t offer comfort in the traditional sense, but he knew that she knew he didn’t want that. _Give it to me straight, Doc._

“Thanks for the tea. And thank Michelle for the cookies.”

“How do you know I didn’t make them?”

Flynn opened the front door and grinned. “They’re edible.”

* * *

Lucy’s head jerked up as the front door opened and Flynn stepped in. He moved quietly, obviously under the impression that she and Wyatt were asleep. Well, he was right on one count.

“Everything all right?” Lucy whispered.

Flynn turned, saw her camped out on the couch, and gave a small, soft smile. “Yes. I was just chatting with Denise.”

He took off his jacket and shoes, walking over. “What are you doing?”

“Research for the next book. I’m afraid I’ve dived straight into sentimentality.” She held up the biography she’d been making notes in.

“Ah, Keats.” Flynn cleared his throat and read from the page. “The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you against the unpromising morning of my life. My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again – my life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb’d me.”

Lucy’s blood spiked and she forced herself to keep looking at the page instead of up at Flynn as his voice flowed over the words, recited them as if he’d come up with them himself and was speaking them spontaneously, meaningfully. She knew, like she knew the sun rose every morning, that if she looked up at him right now her heart wouldn’t survive it.

“You missed your calling,” she said, her voice a little hoarser than she would’ve liked. “As an actor.”

“Lorena used to tease me about the same thing,” Flynn said, “although usually when I was being dramatic about something.”

Lucy stifled a laugh. Flynn was getting better about mentioning Lorena and Iris in conversation lately. She told herself it was a good thing.

“You should go to bed,” she noted, closing her book.

“I should say the same to you.” Flynn smiled at her, but she saw concern lurking in the corners. “You’ve been up until all hours.”

“I just want to… get myself back into the swing of writing after I avoided it. I don’t want to let… Emma tried to take a lot away from me, and so did Mom, in a way, and I… I don’t want to let them.”

Flynn nodded. “I’m proud of you. Not that—you don’t need my approval, I’m not saying—but y’know. If you… for what it’s worth. I am.”

“Seeing as we started our partnership with you convinced I was the most annoying person on the planet, it does mean quite a lot to me.” Lucy wasn’t even sure how to articulate how much.

Flynn stood up fully. “Don’t burn the midnight oil. We’ve got a case so we’ve got to be up early.”

“How you got to be a morning person,” Lucy said, “I’ll never know, but luckily I choose to overlook this huge flaw in your character.”

“I’m truly flattered.” Flynn saluted her and then slipped into his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Lucy buried her face in her pillow and screamed out of sheer embarrassment.

* * *

“Okay,” Wyatt said, working around a yawn as he stuck the picture up onto the murder board. “Our victim is Susan Watts. She’s got quite a record. Dropped out of high school and has been convicted of petty theft and larceny. She got out of jail six months ago, no known associates.”

“Do we have an address?” Flynn asked. He had taken to putting more care in his appearance than Wyatt had seen in a while, actually shaving every morning, and while Wyatt was a goddamn sucker for scruffy Flynn and always would be, well-dressed Flynn was sending him into fits.

“Yup,” Rufus said, passing over the paper. “It’s from a few months ago so it might be out of date but it’s what we got.”

“Any news from Jiya?”

“Nothing yet other than the initial report of death by strangulation.”

Flynn nodded. “Wyatt, Lucy, with me. Rufus, Jess, see if you can find out any more paperwork, and let me know once Jiya’s finished the autopsy.”

Wyatt grabbed his jacket and helped Lucy into hers, and they were off.

Turned out, the address was out of date. Katrina, Susan’s former roommate, hadn’t heard from her in three months.

“She was the ideal roommate, really,” Katrina explained. “She was really trying to turn her life around. Quiet, thoughtful, she was really sweet. About three months ago, she gave me a check for next month’s rent and told me she’d gotten a new job and would be moving out, getting her own place.”

Katrina, a sweet-looking girl with a round face and pale blonde hair, looked more like a child than an adult as she added, “I was happy for her. She deserved to catch a break.”

“Did she mention what this new job was?” Lucy said.

Katrina shook her head. “No, she was very secretive about it, actually.”

“And she had no other friends that you know about?” Flynn asked. “No boyfriend or girlfriend?”

“No, she kept to herself,” Katrina said. “I think I was the only person she knew.”

A lonely young woman with a criminal record and no friends or family to miss her got a secretive new job that paid her lots of money?

Yeah. Wyatt smelled a rat.

* * *

Rufus glanced at the text again as he walked into the morgue. “You sure you don’t want me to bring Jess?” he said, walking in. “Or anyone else?”

Jiya, standing over Susan Watts’ body, shook her head. “No. I… I want to show just you. In case I’m paranoid.”

Rufus pocketed his phone. _Come see me alone, ASAP, _Jiya had said. “I’m sure you’re not.”

“I might be. I’m going to sound paranoid, I know that much.” Jiya took a deep breath. “I want you to look at her again. Susan. Do you notice anything about her that strikes you as familiar?”

Rufus tilted his head to look down at the dead woman. “Well, she’s blonde?”

Jiya nodded.

“She was strangled?”

Jiya nodded again.

Rufus thought he might know what she was getting at. “Keynes killed women in their homes, the one time he didn’t was because his victim knew him and wouldn’t let him into her apartment.”

“Yes, but Susan was running from someone. It could be she escaped Keynes the first time. She had to have lived nearby.”

“We’re still canvasing the area. But Jiya…”

“There’s more.” Jiya took a deep breath. “She’s been undergoing plastic surgery. She’s gotten cheek implants, and a nose job.”

Huh. Rufus looked down at Susan.

Jiya started to sound distressed. “The cheekbones? The mouth? Rufus, doesn’t she remind you of anyone?”

Jiya put a scan of Susan’s face up on a computer, and then took a picture of Amy, sliding one over the other.

“…holy shit,” Rufus breathed.

“It’s not complete yet, she was killed before the person finished, but this woman was being made to look like her.” Jiya looked at him, her mouth trembling. “She was being made to look like Amy.”

* * *

Amy entered the apartment and was surprised to find it dark. “Hello?” Wasn’t Jess supposed to be home?

“Just a sec!” Jess yelled from the direction of the bedroom. “Crap, what are you doing home!? You weren’t supposed to be here for another… what time is it!?”

“Are you trying to surprise me?” Amy said gleefully, setting down her purse. “Oh my God, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“Do you want me to leave and come back? I can do that.”

“No, no, I just… Ugh, I can’t get the damn zipper on this dress.” Jess walked out. “I was gonna light candles… it was gonna be romantic.”

She was wearing a stunning dark plum dress, her hair loose and curling around her shoulders, and Amy forced herself not to gape and to helpfully do up her girlfriend’s zipper instead. “Well. I think this makes my gift look like crap.”

She’d ordered flowers to be sent to the precinct because Jess, for all of her grumbling, was old-fashioned that way and liked flowers. But she certainly hadn’t planned anything, exactly, and Jess, it appeared, had.

“Your gift was perfect, and the boys teased me about it all day and it was lovely.” Jess tugged on Amy’s hands and led her into the middle of the room and then grabbed the remote for the speakers.

“Oh, no, Jess, I’m still in my scrubs!”

“Shhh.” Jess pulled her into a dance as Billy Joel’s _Uptown Girl _started playing. Jess sang along, grinning, twisting them back and forth. Amy laughed.

“Uptown girl,” Jess sang, “she’s been living in her uptown world. I bet she never had a backstreet guy—I bet her mother never told her why.”

She waggled her finger back and forth at Amy, then spun her around.

“I’m gonna try for an uptown girl! She’s been living in her white bread world, as long as anyone with hot blood can, and now she’s looking for a downtown woman—that’s what I am!”

Amy noticed the lyric change and grinned even harder, wrapping her arms around Jess’s neck and letting herself be pulled in close.

* * *

Eddie Miller never really got to do anything interesting in evidence, but at least most of the cops that came down here were nice and would take a few minutes to chat with him.

Not Jessica Logan though, at least not tonight. She was unusually quiet as she made her request and signed the paperwork.

“Got somewhere to be?” Eddie asked.

“Anniversary,” Jess said quietly, her focus on her papers. She accepted the box of evidence when Eddie gave it to her.

“Not sure what you’ll be needing all this for. Judge officially declared him dead.” And good riddance, too, if you asked Eddie. That bastard had been hurting all those poor girls, and he’d come after one of their own, too. Flynn had nearly been sent to prison and Lucy had nearly died.

“Oh, you know, the paperwork never ends,” Jess said. Her voice was a little rough and clipped. Maybe she had a cold coming on.

She picked up the box of evidence, and Eddie waved to her as she walked back upstairs with it.

* * *

They danced all across the living room, and Amy didn’t care that her hair was just up in a lazy bun and she wasn’t wearing makeup and she needed a shower. Jess had dressed up for her, and was singing to her, and dancing with her, and they lived together and had been dating for a year and it was their anniversary and Amy loved her more than anything else in the goddamn world.

“Uptown girl,” Jess sang, laughing a little and kissing Amy’s nose before pulling back and dragging her into the kitchen. “You know I can’t afford to buy her pearls. But maybe someday when my ship comes in, she’ll understand what kind of girl I’ve been, and then I’ll win.”

She pulled out a small cake from the fridge, obviously homemade, on which was written in clumsy but painstakingly done letters, _Happy Anniversary_.

Amy pulled Jess in as Jess set the cake down, and Amy kissed her. “I love you.”

Jess’s phone rang. Jess rolled her eyes. “C’mon, let’s cut the cake.”

“No, you should answer it…”

“It won’t be anything serious, Denise let me have the night off.” Jess kissed Amy’s neck. “I’m all yours.”

Amy glanced at Jess’s phone on the table. “…but it’s the precinct.” They wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important. “You answer it, I’ll take a shower.”

“I want to join you in the shower,” Jess pouted, but she picked up the phone. “All right, all right.” She playfully smacked Amy’s ass as Amy pulled away and went into the bathroom.

Despite the allure of having Jess join her there, Amy kept her shower quick. She wanted some cake, and more dancing. But when she got out, Jess was sitting on the couch, and looking upset. No, not upset. Shocked. Like someone had walked in, punched her in the face, and then left without a word.

Amy came and sat down next to her. “What’s wrong?”

Jess kept staring into the distance. “That was Denise. Apparently someone just walked into the evidence locker and took all of the evidence we had on Keynes. It’s gone.”

“What!?” How?

Jess nodded.

“Well who took it out?” Amy asked. “Is there a… a mole in the police?”

Jess swallowed. “That’s the thing. Denise says… Miller, the guy in charge of the evidence locker… he swears I did it. I’m the one who signed out the evidence.”

Amy’s stomach dropped.

* * *

Lucy highlighted one of the lines on the page she’d printed out, then set it aside, picking up her laptop again. She opened the page on her web browser, feeling a bit guilty but also feeling powerful. Emma had known everything about her. Emma had tried to systematically destroy her life, and had nearly killed Amy, the worst possible thing anyone could do. Lucy reached up and touched her locket, the one with Amy’s picture inside. Amy was… well, the precinct was her family now, too, and Connor was her family, but Amy was her little sister. She always would be.

It was only fair that Lucy got to know a bit about Emma in return.

“Why do you keep looking that stuff up?” Wyatt asked, eating an apple and reading over her shoulder from where she sat at the kitchen table. “You shouldn’t torture yourself with stuff like that.”

“It’s far from torture,” Lucy replied. “It actually helps.”

“How can it possibly help to learn more about a psychopath?”

Lucy tilted her computer screen towards him. “It reminds me that what Emma did wasn’t my fault. That I’m not to blame for this. Look. The more I’m finding out about her the more I’m seeing that it was… it was only a matter of time until she did something like this. see, she went to medical school to become a plastic surgeon, but was forced to drop out after a classmate accused Emma of trying to poison her.”

“Poison her? Oh Jesus.” Wyatt leaned in to read. Lucy could smell him—he used a similar shampoo to Flynn, only it was a little more lemony, not quite as straight-up woodsy. She wanted to lean in and rest her head on his shoulder, kiss his neck, but even though she knew he would want it, that wasn’t how they were doing this. Flynn was doing… so much better. She and Wyatt had had some late-night chats, about perhaps telling Flynn, when the time was right. When Flynn was truly ready.

“All the charges were dropped, it never got to court as far as I can tell but it was enough to get it in a local paper.”

“You said she studied plastic surgery?” Wyatt asked. “That explains—in her manuscript, the time thieves one, plastic surgery was an important plot point. That must’ve been what made her think of it.”

“To think,” Lucy murmured, scrolling down, “she could’ve been a doctor. She was smart enough for it. She could’ve done anything, with her brains. But she chose to become a murderer instead. It’s almost sad.”

“Not enough for me to feel sorry for her,” Wyatt admitted.

Lucy laughed softly.

Flynn walked into the room, dressed and buttoning up his shirt. Lucy stared at him. “I thought you were getting into the shower.”

“I was,” Flynn conceded. “But Denise just called. We have to get down to the precinct, all the information on Keynes was stolen.”

“What!?” Wyatt stood up, nearly dropping his apple.

Lucy’s blood ran cold, her throat going tight. “How did he do that?”

“That’s the thing.” Flynn looked angry and confused, utterly baffled, and Lucy had never seen him look like that before. “According to Miller, Jess took out the files.”

* * *

Jess paced up and down, finding it hard to breathe. Amy had insisted on coming and sat, her hair still wet, on the edge of Jess’s desk while Rufus, Flynn, Wyatt, and Lucy gathered around.

Denise had showed them all the footage, and Jess thought she might throw up just thinking about it. Someone who looked just like her, someone had stolen—someone had taken her _face_. What science fiction, dystopian bullshit was this?

She was unique, she was _herself_, how could someone steal that…

“This matches what Jiya told me,” Rufus said quietly. “Our victim was getting plastic surgery that was altering her face to make her look like… Amy.”

“So she was going to be used for something, the way that this Jess lookalike was,” Wyatt said, his voice sharp.

“Fortunate that you had an alibi,” Denise remarked.

“That’s the thing,” Jess managed, her voice choked. “I wasn’t going to have an alibi. I was going to be alone in the apartment. Amy got off work early. I wouldn’t have had… anything…” She would’ve had nothing to show, nobody to prove it wasn’t her…

“Who would do this?” Flynn demanded. “Keynes? Did he become a fucking doctor in his spare time?”

“Emma did,” Lucy said, and Jess felt like the room was tilting. Emma Whitmore, who had kidnapped Amy. Emma Whitmore who had nearly murdered Amy in cold blood. Emma who found out, somehow, about the miscarriage and then taunted her about it, who hit and abused Amy, who murdered people for sport…

“Emma Whitmore studied to be a plastic surgeon before she was… forced to leave medical school,” Lucy explained. “But she’s highly intelligent, there’s no reason she couldn’t have found a way to further her studies in a less legal way.”

“So are she and Keynes teaming up?” Rufus asked, sounding equal parts horrified and disgusted.

“It makes sense,” Denise conceded, as Jess’s throat grew tighter. She felt lightheaded, like the objects around her were no longer solid. “They both are highly intelligent, they both have Antisocial Personality Disorder, and they both have a strong and personal vendetta against this precinct.” She paused. “Against you three.”

Flynn took a step to his left, physically putting himself in front of Wyatt and Lucy, as if Keynes and Emma were standing in front of them that very moment. Both Wyatt and Lucy tensed. Lucy looked like she might be ill.

Jess could relate.

“Susan Watts has plastic surgery, and she was murdered in the same way as the Triple Killer,” Rufus said slowly. “She was going to be used to fuck with us but tried to escape and died before that plan could come to fruition. A Jess lookalike was used as well… so how many other lookalikes could they have?”

“And what’s their overall plan?” Flynn murmured.

Denise’s cell phone rang and she held up a finger for silence as she answered it. Jess’s cell phone rang as well. She pulled it out of her pocket and stared at the name: Jiya.

“Hello?” she asked as she answered the phone.

A burst of hysterical laughter and tears greeted her, while Denise snapped over her phone, “What!?”

“Hello?” Jess repeated, her heart leaping up into her throat and the room spinning. “Jiya?”

“I thought it was you,” Jiya choked out. “We thought it was you, thank God, thank God, she looks just like you—”

Jiya continued to cry as Denise looked up from her own phone conversation. “CSU was called in on a body in an apartment. They recognized the person as Jessica Logan.”

All the blood drained from Wyatt’s face and Rufus made a choked noise.

“I’m okay,” Jess said into the phone, even though ‘okay’ was the last thing that she felt right then. “I’m alive, I’m at the precinct with the others.”

“I’m… I’m gonna… gotta finish up here,” Jiya managed. “But I just—I had to be sure—I had to make sure—she looked just like you.”

Jess felt the room spin again and she dazedly passed the phone over to Rufus, who took it and began speaking soothingly into the phone to Jiya. “I think I need to use the bathroom,” Jess said, her words coming out distant, disembodied, cold.

She crashed into the room and made it to the toilet, her knees buckling. She was literally blind, her vision gone, nothing but black as her stomach trembled and threatened to heave up everything she’d eaten that day.

“Oh, honey, hey. Hey, can I touch you? It’s Amy, can I touch you?”

Jess nodded, and Amy’s hand slid across her back, to her shoulder, drawing Jess into her until Jess’s head was resting on Amy’s shoulder and she was curled against Amy’s chest.

“This is our anniversary,” she said, stupidly. As if that was what mattered. But it _did _matter. This was supposed to be their day off, they were supposed to be cuddling right now and feeding each other bites of homemade chocolate cake, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Emma Whitmore had found another way to violate her life, hers and Amy’s, ruin something and steal it from them.

“Breathe with me,” Amy whispered. “Feel my breathing. Copy my breathing. Nice and deep like that. Very good.”

Jess tried to match that breathing and mimic Amy, although it wasn’t easy. She felt like she was drowning. Her vision was starting to come back, though, the world no longer black.

“Name for me five things you can see,” Amy said.

“Um…” It took her a moment. “The toilet, the tile, your hair, my watch, the ceiling light.”

“Good. Name for me four things you can touch.”

Breathing was a bit easier now. “You, the floor, the toilet, the stall wall.”

“Excellent. What about three things you can hear?”

“My breathing. Your breathing.” Jess had to concentrate to try and find something else. “The water rushing in the pipes.”

Amy stroked her hair. “Two things you can smell.”

“Vanilla from your perfume. Strawberries from your shampoo.”

Amy laughed softly. “And one thing you can taste.”

“Chocolate,” Jess whispered, looking up at her. “From the cake.”

Amy tucked some of Jess’s hair behind her ear. “I love you. She can’t take that from us. I love you so much. And nothing’s going to steal you from me, or me from you. We’re too badass for that.”

Normally, she would’ve laughed at that, but it kind of stuck in her throat in that particular moment. Instead she just brushed her nose against Amy’s.

Her heart was still racing, but her breathing was better. Her vision was clear, and the room was no longer spinning.

The door opened. “Jess? Amy?”

It was Lucy.

“We’re in here,” Amy called.

Lucy opened the stall door and sat down on the floor with them. “Hey. Denise said that you two can go home. She’ll post a couple officers to watch out for you guys. Jiya’s working on the body in the morgue, Rufus is with her. Flynn and Wyatt and I were wondering if you wanted to spend the night at our place instead of yours, if that would help you feel safer? You can use my room, I’ll take the couch. It’s a huge couch, I fall asleep on it all the time anyway, so it’s really not a problem.”

Jess considered that. It was a kind offer, and probably a smart idea, but she didn’t want to be anywhere other than home right now. “I just want to be in my bed.”

“Then we’ll go home,” Amy promised. “We’ll watch Great British Bake Off and eat cake. It’ll be good. She won’t take this from us. I won’t let her.”

Lucy smiled warmly at her sister, and Jess reached out, taking Lucy’s hand. Out of all the people in the world, Lucy, Wyatt, and Flynn were the ones who could most understand what this felt like. What it was to be targeted by someone like this. “Thank you, Lucy.”

“You’re family,” Lucy promised. She squeezed Jess’s hand. “We’re here for whatever you need.”

This was why she was working for Cahill. Why she was risking jail or worse. One wrong move, one slip, and she’d have a bullet flying into the back of her skull faster than you could say _double cross_. But it was worth it for this, for these people, her family.

Jess squeezed Lucy’s hand in return.

* * *

Flynn headed down to the morgue before they left for home. There was nothing much they could do in the middle of the night like this, as much as he wanted to stay and pound the pavement in some way. There was working hard, and then there was working himself to death, and his therapist had been stern about insisting he learn to draw a distinction between the two.

Besides, Lucy and Wyatt needed to get some sleep. They’d both stay at the precinct all damn night if Flynn let them and having two of their team sleep deprived wasn’t going to help anyone.

Rufus was on his laptop sitting at one of the empty tables, wearing a hoodie since he’d been dragged to the precinct last-minute and it was cold in the morgue, while Jiya was working diligently and silently on her autopsy.

Flynn’s stomach turned as he got closer and saw the corpse. It really did look like Jessica. She’d been strangled with a thin cord of rope, a classic Keynes move. A toy to be discarded once her purpose was filled.

Rufus nodded at him as he walked past, then went back to his research. Flynn laid a hand on Jiya’s shoulder. Jiya didn’t look up. “You all right?”

Jiya shrugged. “I thought one of my best friends was murdered.”

Flynn stared at her and didn’t say anything. With a sigh, Jiya set down her scalpel. “It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s not Jess, and I’m fine.” Her voice got a bit raw towards the end, the edges fraying.

Jiya’s hair was pulled back, as was proper when at work and dealing with dead bodies, so Flynn couldn’t run his fingers through it and stroke it the way he had Iris’s hair when she’d had nightmares. He pulled Jiya into his chest instead, her bony shoulder digging into his sternum, her head tilting sideways.

“I know you’re fine,” he said. “But you had a scare. I wanted to check up.”

He heard her sniffle, and he squeezed her a little tighter. He could feel her trembling, even though he heard nothing after that first noise. A minute passed, two minutes, and then Jiya pulled away.

“Thank you,” she said. Rufus passed her a tissue from a box at his elbow, and Jiya blew her nose. “Rufus is looking after me.”

“Good.” Flynn nodded at Rufus, who gave him the ASL word for ‘thank you’ behind Jiya’s back: making his palm flat and then touching his fingertips to his lips and bringing the hand down into a horizontal, palm-up position.

Flynn understood. Jiya could be stubborn, just like him.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” he said, instead of _don’t stay up too late, get some sleep._

Jiya gave him a watery smile and picked up her scalpel.

* * *

The moment they were safely back in their apartment, Wyatt’s entire body started shaking. A roar he had felt building up inside of him for hours shot out of him, making him tremble like in the grip of an earthquake, his hands curling into fists, tears stinging the corners of his eyes.

How dare they. How _dare _they do that to Jess, how fucking dare they, he was going to kill them, he was going to tear them limb from limb for hurting her, Jess who had been through so much, Jess who had stood by him, saved him, protected him, how _dare_—

“The neighbors are going to think someone’s being murdered,” Flynn said, and Wyatt rounded on him, still too angry, still shaking, still in the grip of that animal grief that made him want to just scream and scream and scream until his voice was gone.

But Flynn just yanked at him, wrapped his arms around him, forcing Wyatt to unleash his roar into Flynn’s chest. Wyatt’s fists beat at Flynn’s shoulders, his sides, tears starting to slide down his face. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t _fair_.

“That’s it,” Flynn murmured. His hand raked softly through Wyatt’s hair, holding the back of his head, keeping him pressed into Flynn, creating a cocoon.

He was hurting Flynn. He had to be, he wasn’t holding back, striking him over and over, but Flynn just grunted and took it, let Wyatt scream his rage until Wyatt went limp, all of the fight draining out of him as quickly as it had arrived.

“She’s getting hurt because of us.” Wyatt didn’t even recognize his own voice and he sucked in a great, burning gulp of air. “She deserves a fucking break and I can’t help her, I can’t protect her, and she’s my best friend.”

Flynn just kept holding him, and Wyatt realized he was rocking back and forth softly, using the balls of his feet.

“Puppy,” Lucy said, and Wyatt turned to see she was sitting on the couch, holding a cup of water she’d evidently gotten.

Lucy held out a hand. “Come here.”

She’d never called him that before, and normally he might’ve objected to the name, but right now that was exactly how he felt, like a puppy, trying to be big and fierce, to protect the ones he loved, and failing.

Flynn walked them over to the couch and collapsed as Wyatt sat down, accepting the glass of water. Lucy hummed, running her fingers through his hair. “They were trying to make an Amy,” she said, her voice tremulous. “Who’s next? Jiya? Rufus? Denise? Connor, even?”

Wyatt didn’t say it out loud, but… Emma had found out about Jess’s miscarriage. What else could she find out? Keynes was a formidable foe but Wyatt was a lot more scared of what Emma could do. What if she got a hold of photos of Lorena and Iris? What if she made someone look like them?

He wouldn’t put it past her. He wouldn’t even put it past her to kill a child, if that served her ends.

His first sip of water tasted like bile.

Wyatt forced himself to keep drinking it anyway.

“Trust me, I’m as furious as you are,” Flynn said. “But we need sleep. We’ll come at this in the morning. We don’t know their game yet but neither of them could ever resist announcing at least some of their plan to us. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Wyatt finished off his water. Lucy stopped petting his hair. “I…” She sounded ashamed. “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”

Neither did he, actually. Not that he’d been sleeping alone. He’d been sharing with Flynn. And boy was that a situation that needed to be resolved at some point before he did something stupid and humiliating like hump Flynn in his sleep. An unrealistic fear, maybe, but definitely one he had. Flynn managed to reduce him to a panicked fourteen-year-old inside.

But regardless… yeah. He understood. He didn’t want to be alone right now.

“Would it be too awkward?” Lucy asked. “If I…?”

“No,” Flynn said, a bit too quickly by his own estimation if the wince he then made was anything to go by. “No, whatever you need. I’m… not sure if I would want to be alone either.”

Lucy made Wyatt have another glass of water, and then disappeared into her room. Wyatt got into his pajamas, trying to ignore Flynn, trying to pretend his heart wasn’t pounding. Not that he would’ve done anything about it even if he had been bold enough, courageous enough, for it. That wasn’t what tonight was about.

Lucy knocked softly on the door, and Wyatt opened it for her. Her eyes were red, but in that way that said she’d been holding back tears, rather than letting them go. Lucy tried to hold herself together for others too much, Wyatt had found.

They all silently crawled into bed, Lucy in the middle, and Wyatt took in the dark slopes of their bodies once Flynn turned off the light, and they were left in darkness.

It was only once they were all under the covers, safe, that Lucy started to cry.

Wyatt scooted towards her, molding himself to her back, as he felt Flynn do the same from the other side, wrapping Lucy up in his arms from the front. It was oddly the least sexual thing that Wyatt had ever done with Lucy, or with Flynn for that matter (although the sexual things with Flynn were really just Flynn doing normal things and Wyatt dying inside). He felt less like a human being and more like a puppy, like Lucy’s nickname, like they were three soft animals just loving what they loved and seeking comfort from one another, huddling and holding because it was the only defense they had against the darkness that threatened to consume them.

Flynn’s hand found his in the dark, and Wyatt squeezed it so tightly he feared Flynn would tell him it was too much.

“What are you thinking?” he whispered. He knew Flynn was thinking something. Flynn was never _not _thinking.

“Of a poem,” Flynn admitted. Lucy was still sobbing quietly into Flynn’s chest, and Wyatt could feel her body vibrating against his as he tried to press himself against her, tried to absorb what he could from her. To take it into himself like sucking the poison from a wound, if that was even possible.

“Recite it,” Wyatt whispered—no, begged.

He could see the upward quirk of Flynn’s mouth, even in the dim moonlight. Or perhaps it was just that he knew Flynn that well, and his imagination supplied it.

“You do not have to be good,” Flynn murmured. “You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting…”

It was his voice that lulled Wyatt into sleep.

* * *

Rufus could feel the screen in front of him blurring, his fingers sluggishly typing out the words, only managing to get it all to sound coherent thanks to a combination of deeply ingrained instincts and the miracle of spell-check. “How’re you doing, Jiya?” he called. His body promptly turned the sentence into a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Just wrapping up.” Jiya had the remarkable ability to stay up until all hours. It was trying to wake her up once she fell asleep that was the problem. “How are you hanging in there?”

Rufus considered lying, but then decided that his bloodshot eyes and slurring words probably gave him away. “Terribly.”

“I’ll drive home,” Jiya promised him. “Did you find anything?”

“Maybe.” Rufus went back to scrolling down the webpage open on his computer screen. “I found out where I think Susan got her new job from. After she got out of prison she contacted this company called Second Life. It works specifically with former inmates and helps them get a new start.”

“That’s good,” Jiya said. “But… I’m guessing that it’s also the kind of thing you can abuse.”

Rufus nodded. “These people are insanely vulnerable, they’re in desperate need of a job and they can’t get one through most regular channels since nobody’s going to hire them once they see their criminal record. That makes them easy to exploit.”

“Should we get a warrant for their records?” Jiya suggested, finally taking off her gloves, then her coat, throwing away the former and hanging up the latter.

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Rufus clicked on the _Staff _page for the website. “Looks like a lot of people donate to this place, so I’m sure it’s probably at least mostly above board, y’know, but that doesn’t mean…”

He scrolled down and froze.

…what the fuck…

“Right.” Jiya snorted. “Like rich people really know or care if an organization is above board or not. Just look at the Susan G. Komen foundation. They’re the fucking worst when it comes to actually donating their funds to breast cancer research, and they bully other breast cancer charities, but rich people are still propping them up as fantastic.”

Rufus couldn’t answer her. He just couldn’t. He knew he was staring, and that he should say something, and stop just staring like an idiot, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to form words. Anger and shock coursed through him in waves. He felt like he was being battered.

“…Rufus?” Jiya waved a hand in front of his face. “What is it?”

Rufus silently turned the computer towards her so that she could see the screen.

_Director of Client Counseling_, said the title of the blurb. _Dr. Kelly Nieman._

But the face…

Jiya’s eyes went wide. “That’s…”

“Yeah.” Rufus kept staring at the photo. “That’s Emma Whitmore.”

* * *

Flynn had never before understood the term ‘seeing red’. He’d seen black, when Lorena and Iris had died. Black and gray, color sucked from the world, black bile that ate at him from the inside, choking him, some kind of eldritch monster made of grief.

When he walked into the precinct the next morning, though, Wyatt at his heels still looking like a kicked puppy and Lucy absolutely worn out beside him, he saw red all right.

“We found Emma,” Rufus announced. Jess was still at home, told to take the day off by Denise. “She’s been working as a big player in a charity not twenty fucking blocks from here.”

This was what that expression meant.

The look in his eyes must’ve scared Rufus, because the guy took a small step back. “Yeah, we’re all pissed, Flynn, you might wanna inhale though.”

“How,” Wyatt spat out. Lucy sank down slowly into Jess’s empty chair. “She’s a criminal!”

“A criminal who created a bunch of fake documents,” Rufus shot back. “She’s going under a new name, Kelly Nieman. She’s claiming to be a doctor and everything, her main focus is helping former inmates get nursing degrees, or work as hospice caretakers, that sort of thing. According to her bio on the company website, anyway.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wyatt muttered. “I need some fucking coffee.” He stormed into the break room.

“You just had coffee!” Lucy yelled after him.

“I need more!”

Flynn took several steadying deep breaths, the world still tinged scarlet. “So we go in and we arrest her. Easy.”

“Not so easy,” Rufus warned. “She’s scrubbed her records clean. According to the law, she’s Kelly Nieman, not Emma Whitmore. We can’t prove it’s false.”

“She’s good,” Lucy said dully. “She’s always been good.”

“Well, she’s up to no good,” Flynn countered. He turned to the murder board. “She’s already killed two people, and she’ll kill again. We just have to prove it.” Even if Keynes had done the actual strangling, that still made Emma an accessory to the murder. They would find evidence. There was always evidence, always some way to get the person to trip up. He just had to be patient.

Rufus sighed, also turning to face the murder board. “You know how I want to quit the force.”

Flynn nodded. Thanks to Emma’s last round of shenanigans, it was an open secret in the precinct.

“I can’t do that,” Rufus said. “Not until these two are caught. I can’t walk away from this.”

“I know the feeling.” He put his hand on Rufus’s shoulder. “And we appreciate it, Rufus. Really. We couldn’t do this without you.”

Rufus gave him a small smile. “I don’t suppose we could just bring her in and let you go all Flynn on her, could we?”

“If only.”

There had to be a way to stop her. They just had to figure it out.

“Okay, so…” Wyatt walked out of the break room, coffee in hand, and paused. “Where’s Lucy?”

Flynn whipped around.

Lucy was gone.

* * *

Lucy’s heart pounded as she rode the elevator up to the third floor of the Second Life headquarters building. Flynn would kill her when he found out what she was doing, but she had to be sure. She had to know for certain.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal a sleek, clean floor with the walls and decorations done up in a modern, chrome-and-marble sort of style, like blending the old and the new. Well, the place might be partially run by a murderer, but at least they’d hired a good interior designer.

Lucy walked further in, looking around. Second Life was a very popular organization, it seemed, and a rather new one. That must’ve been how Emma was able to get in—newer organizations were in desperate need of professionals to help them gain a foothold in the extremely competitive world of charities. Rich people were only willing to give up so much of their (supposedly) hard-earned money, and charities could be cutthroat towards one another.

Ah, capitalism. How Lucy loathed it.

She personally didn’t focus so much on this sort of thing when she did her work for charity fundraising—she tended to work on environmental projects, promoting better education systems, and funding the arts. But it irked her that she hadn’t heard about Second Life until now. If only she had, if only she had looked into it much sooner, she could’ve found out about Emma and maybe they’d have an advantage on her instead of struggling, playing catch up…

“Can I help you?”

Lucy felt a chill settle over her and she had to suppress a shiver of fear and revulsion. She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and turned around.

For a split second, she had the satisfaction of seeing Emma Whitmore caught off guard. The taller woman blinked, a flash of surprise and indignation on her face, and then she settled herself into a detached and slightly smug look. “I’m Dr. Kelly Neiman, I’m in charge of this department. Are you hoping to volunteer or donate? Or are you in need of our services?” Her smile was just on the uncanny valley side of charming.

Lucy smiled back, infusing it with as much warmth as she could muster. “Oh, no, I’m just looking. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Emma.”

“My name is Kelly,” Emma repeated. “But you may call me Dr. Neiman.”

“I’m afraid the only people I call ‘doctor’ are the people with actual medical degrees,” Lucy replied, keeping her tone light and warm, like they were talking about a mutual acquaintance.

“And who might you be?” Emma replied. She was doing a good job of insisting on her new identity, that was certain. Lucy wasn’t sure if it was because Emma feared people might be overhearing them, or if she wanted to make Lucy doubt her own sanity. Either way, Lucy wasn’t about to back down.

“Forgotten me already?” Lucy pouted. “And here I thought I was your nemesis. I guess that doesn’t mean what it used to. I thought I was special to you.”

Emma’s smile was sharp and looked slightly frozen. “You’re welcome to think I’m whoever you like, but look me up. All legal records will tell you that I’m Dr. Neiman. Not Emma. And if you try to prove otherwise, you’re going to find yourself in a world of trouble. I can see the headlines now, a famous author losing her mind? A public and wildly derided court case?” Emma shook her head and adopted a sympathetic look. “After all she’s been through, no wonder poor Lucy Preston’s mind snapped.”

Triumph rose in her and she had to struggle to keep the gleeful, predatory smile off her face. “I don’t recall giving you my name,” Lucy whispered. “I thought you said you didn’t know me?”

Emma finally dropped the mask, at least a little, hatred blazing in her eyes like fire. “You took my life from me, Lucy. I will take yours. It’s only a matter of time. But good luck trying to prove it.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will. Your plot twists were always a little contrived, anyway.”

Emma forced another smile onto her face. “Then I’m sure we have nothing more to say to each other. Unless you’d like a pin?” She walked over to one of the desks and picked a pin up out of a small basket. It was the kind of pin you’d wear to promote a presidential candidate or stick one with a funny saying to a backpack or jacket to add flair.

“No, but if you tell me what happened to Susan Watts, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know who that person is,” Emma replied smoothly without missing a beat. This part, at least, she seemed to have been prepared for, even if she hadn’t been prepared for Lucy herself to be asking the questions.

She held out the pin. “You sure you don’t want it? I designed it myself.”

“I’m fine.” Lucy started to walk back towards the elevator, but she couldn’t resist a parting shot. “Is there anything I can give you? What about a signed copy of my new book?” She started to reach into her purse, as if she actually had a copy with her. “It’s a bestseller.”

Emma’s face went white with fury, even as the smile stayed fixed on her face, and Lucy’s returning smile was entirely genuine this time. “No? All right then. Have a lovely day.”

She could feel Emma’s gaze burning into her like dry ice, but Lucy didn’t turn around as she got into the elevator, as she pressed the button for the ground floor, as the doors closed. It was dangerous to turn your back on a predator, or so all the nature documentaries said.

But Lucy was done playing it safe.

* * *

Wyatt just about collapsed when Lucy walked back into the precinct, looking none the worse for wear. Before he could say anything, Flynn was on the case.

“Where have you been!?” Flynn was obviously trying to keep his voice down but Wyatt could hear the strain in it.

“I had to make sure,” Lucy said, setting down her purse. “I had to see her. I had to see she was real.”

“You…” Flynn looked like Lucy had just opened a box of poisonous snakes in front of him. He ran his hand across his mouth, his tongue darting out to wet his lower lip. “You went and saw Emma!?”

“She wasn’t expecting it,” Lucy said. “She was surprised to see me. I had her on the back foot.”

“Holy shit, you confronted her!?” Wyatt blurted out. He would pay good money to have been there to see that. “That’s so…”

Flynn turned and glared at him and Wyatt immediately reversed course. “…dangerous, reckless, totally, not a good idea at all, wow Lucy.”

Lucy looked at him pointedly and then rounded on Flynn. “You should’ve seen her. She was all high and mighty in her tower, convinced that we can’t touch her. She’s toying with us, Flynn, and you know what? I’m sick of it. I’m not going to stay here and be paranoid all the time about what she’ll do next. I wanted to take the fight to her if only for a moment. I want her to look me in the eye, I want her to know I’m not backing down. She tried to take everything from me once, I’m not going to let her do it again.”

“You think I’m not angry?” Flynn countered. “You think I don’t want to do the same thing? That woman nearly killed you, Lucy. I saw your apartment explode, I had to carry you out of those flames myself, not sure if you remember that, and it was what you might call traumatizing. She could have hurt you.”

“No, she wouldn’t have, that’s not how she works,” Lucy insisted. “She needs it to fall in with her plan. She wouldn’t have just killed me then and there. People like her, they need it to fall into some grandiose scheme, they need it to be theatrical, they need to do it in a way that shows you just how clever and better than you they are.”

“You _provoked _her, Lucy!” Flynn started pacing. Wyatt felt his stomach twist, never liking it when Lucy and Flynn were at odds. “You think that I don’t want to track down Keynes and do something like that? I know he’s out there working with her but it’s not going to do me any good to track him down and scare him. It’ll only make him angrier and make him feel like he’s got the upper hand. Emma is legally someone else right now, she could get you in trouble and say you were harassing her.”

“So, what, you just want me to sit here and do nothing? That’s the opposite of how you want to do things. I’m tired of playing it safe, Flynn. Playing it safe has gotten us nothing. She tried to kill my _sister_.” Lucy’s hand flew up to her locket, the one she almost always wore, even if it was hidden underneath her clothes half the time.

“I want you _safe_,” Flynn snapped, finally ending his pacing right in front of Lucy. Wyatt wanted to get into the middle, to fix this somehow, but he didn’t know how to do that. “You’re family, Lucy, and I want you safe, I don’t want you throwing yourself into danger.”

“Like you ever stop,” Lucy replied. “You kept pushing on Lorena and Iris’s case and it got you shot. You talk about carrying me out of a burning building, how about when I had to press my hands to your chest as I felt _blood _gushing out? No matter how hard I pressed it just kept gushing out! You were _dying_, you _did _die, you flatlined! Right under my hands you were dying. I kept calling your name and you were staring at me and you didn’t even know me, it was just blank in your eyes, you think I can forget that? You think that doesn’t haunt me every single night?”

Wyatt wondered if he was honestly going to throw up. He wasn’t sure. He had nightmares about both of them, about Lucy burning to death because Flynn hadn’t figured out Emma’s real plan, about not knocking Flynn away and that bullet lodging where the sniper had intended for it to go: right in his heart. Wyatt was terrified of Keynes, Emma, or whoever was behind Lorena and Iris’s deaths succeeding, he was terrified of waking up and finding the two people he loved most dead.

But arguing about it wasn’t going to help any of them.

“I’m not porcelain,” Lucy snapped. “I’m not going to break.”

“I never said you were or that you would,” Flynn replied. “I’m not your mother.”

Ooh. True, but harsh. Then again, Flynn rarely delivered truths any other way.

Lucy’s face flushed and she looked away, eyes dangerously bright. “I’m not Lorena. I’m not going to vanish.”

Now Flynn’s face was the one flushing.

“Hey, guys, so—” Rufus paused as he entered the room. “Um. Should I come back later?”

“No,” all three of them said quickly.

“…okay.” Rufus cleared his throat. “So, you’re not going to like this, or maybe you will, but I want you to check this out.”

* * *

Rufus had been reviewing the camera footage from the street cams outside of the Second Life building. He’d figured that if Susan had been there, and Emma was working there, it was only a matter of time until a camera caught footage of them leaving together. After all, Emma had thought that they wouldn’t find out about her. Susan Watts hadn’t been supposed to die—that was clearly a murder they’d had to do on the fly, and it had led the team straight to Emma. That had been a miscalculation on her part.

But he didn’t see Susan ever spending time with Emma. Instead, he saw her getting into a car with…

“…that’s Keynes,” Wyatt said as Susan got into a pickup truck driven by none other than Nicholas Keynes.

“She’s wearing one of Emma’s pins,” Lucy noted, pointing. It was hard to tell with the grainy camera footage but Rufus could see what she was talking about. “Emma told me she designed them herself. That means that she and Susan met.”

“That’s circumstantial evidence,” Flynn pointed out, “but it is something.”

“That’s Keynes, though,” Rufus said. “That is definitely Keynes.”

“Let me get that license plate,” Wyatt said. “Run it through tracking.”

“Feeling any deep urge to go and confront him?” Flynn asked Lucy in a dangerously conversational tone.

“Oh, no, are _you_?” Lucy replied.

“…I missed something,” Rufus said, although he was equally scared to find out what it was that he was missing.

“You don’t want to know,” Wyatt said quietly.

“I think I’ll go run the plates,” Rufus announced.

Wyatt gave him a betrayed look, but Rufus was already heading out the door. No way was he going to get in the middle of a Lucy and Flynn spat. That was Wyatt’s job.

* * *

Denise insisted on coming with them to arrest Keynes. Whether it was because she wanted to keep them all safe or she wanted to make sure that none of them murdered Keynes when they had him right in front of them, Flynn wasn’t sure, but either way, Denise was bringing the full weight of the precinct down to bear on this arrest.

Flynn drove, Wyatt in the front, Lucy in the back, all of them wearing bulletproof vests.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said quietly. “I know I shouldn’t have gone to see her. I know that it was stupid. But I’m tired of… of feeling hunted. I’m tired of feeling like prey.”

Wyatt looked like he wanted to throw himself out of the still-moving car.

“I should apologize,” Flynn admitted. His chest felt tight, raw, and his voice sounded rusty. “I know that you take this seriously. I know that. And I don’t think that you’re weak or that you can’t take care of yourself. But I worry.”

“You’ve never made me feel weak,” Lucy promised. He couldn’t turn and look at her properly since he was driving, but he made eye contact with her in the mirror, and she gave him a small smile. It was a bit of a sad smile, but it was a warm one, one that Flynn was able to return.

Keynes was living in an apartment that was far away from where they’d found the body of the Jess lookalike (Jiya was still trying to figure out that poor woman’s identity beneath the plastic surgery) but startingly close to where they had found the body of Susan Watts.

“They must’ve been keeping her here,” Lucy said in a hushed voice as they got out of the car. “And she escaped.”

“Maybe she was here willingly at first,” Wyatt theorized. “Maybe they tricked her. Both Keynes and Emma are good at manipulation.”

Denise got out of her car with the SWAT team, Rufus and Jess right behind them. Denise had given Jess the option to keep staying out of it, but Jess had insisted that she wanted to be a part of this. “I’m not going to let them get the better of me,” she’d said.

Flynn admired her for that. He could relate to Jess in a lot of ways, and if he had been in her position, he’d feel the same.

Denise nodded at him, and Flynn took the lead, Wyatt falling in behind, Lucy at the back behind all the cops. She had gotten a license to carry a gun and had been faithfully attending her self-defense classes, but she still wasn’t an officer, and Denise didn’t want her in the line of fire or possibly causing a lawsuit because she’d hit someone.

Flynn banged on the apartment door. “Nicholas Keynes, open up. This is the NYPD.”

Silence greeted him.

Flynn banged on the door again. “Nicholas Keynes, this is the NYPD, I need you to open your door or we’re coming in. We have a warrant for your arrest and to search this property.”

It had been a hell of a thing getting a judge to agree to that warrant, since legally Keynes had been declared dead and nobody wanted to get into the paperwork declaring him alive again would entail. So, technically, the warrant was made out for Michael Bordreau’s arrest, since that was the name of the owner of the car they’d tracked and the name of the guy who was renting this apartment. An easy case of identity theft.

Nothing but silence came from the other side for another moment, and Flynn got ready to kick the damn door open, when he heard someone on the other side.

“Um, hey, I’m—I’m opening the door, please don’t shoot.”

It was Keynes’ voice, Flynn would recognize it anywhere. But it didn’t _sound _like Keynes. He had never heard Keynes sound scared and timid except for back when they’d first met him, when Keynes had been pretending to be an innocent guy.

Flynn took a step back, glancing at Denise, who shrugged.

The door opened, and sure enough, there on the other side was the face that had haunted him for months. The one who’d gotten away, twice.

Well, third time was the charm. He wasn’t going to let Keynes slip through his clutches again.

“Hey, man, I uh… oh wow.” Keynes peered out and saw everyone. “You really rolled out the cavalry here. Uh. I think there’s been some kind of mistake? I’m Michael Bordreau, I live here. I’m not sure who this Keynes person is.”

“You’re a really bad liar,” Wyatt noted.

Keynes squinted at him in confusion. “I’m sorry, what? I’m… you can check the records, I have a license plate and some insurance stuff around here somewhere, hold on…” He turned and started to head back into his apartment.

“Don’t move,” Flynn growled. No way was he giving Keynes the chance to escape out a window.

Keynes froze, and then slowly raised his hands in the air. “All right, okay, geez. Um. I do have the paperwork, though. I can prove I’m Michael.”

“Then would you mind telling us,” Denise said impatiently, “why you look exactly like a known serial killer?”

Utter confusion stood plain on Keynes’ face for a long moment, and then, understanding dawned in his eyes. “Oh my God,” he blurted out. “Is this… I should’ve known it was too good of a deal.”

“What was too good of a deal?” Lucy inquired.

Keynes gestured at his face, shrugging. “I had a stint in prison, and uh, I was struggling to get hired afterwards. This doctor, she said she’d pay me if I let her do this new kind of… experimental plastic surgery on me. Said it was a win-win, she got to test her work and I got a new face and a new chance, and some money too. I was like, okay yeah sign me up, y’know?” Keynes stared at them all. “Are you saying she made me look like a serial killer?”

Nothing of what he said banked the heat in Flynn’s chest. He might be a good liar, he might be trying to play them, but he knew Nicholas Keynes when he saw him.

But there was just one problem: proving it.

“Can you tell us the name of this doctor?” Denise asked patiently.

“Yeah, sure, I think I still have her card somewhere,” Keynes replied. “It was Kelly, Kelly Neiman.”

* * *

Wyatt drummed his fingers against his leg, staring out the window as Flynn drove.

All the paperwork said that the man currently in their interrogation room was Michael Bordreau, and since Keynes had been declared officially dead, that made it all even harder, legally. And then there was the small, tiny, insignificant detail of, you know, the Jess lookalike stealing and probably destroying all the evidence they had about Keynes. And they’d never gotten fingerprints off of Emma so that was a wash, too.

They had to find something that was definitely Keynes’, something that was conclusively his DNA, so that they could then take a sample of this so-called Michael Bordreau’s DNA and compare them.

Keynes, or rather Michael, kept insisting that this was all a misunderstanding and to please contact Dr. Neiman, that she would explain it all.

“Oh, we’ll be contacting her all right,” Lucy had muttered when he’d said that.

Rufus had done some digging and had found the name of the foster mother who had taken Keynes in after his birth mother had abandoned him at a railway station. Flynn and Wyatt were on their way to her now, to see if she might have anything of Keynes’ still lying around.

This woman, Ruth, apparently lived in a ramshackle trailer park, where she’d lived ever since she’d had Keynes under her care. Wyatt didn’t have high hopes as they parked the car and got out.

“This doesn’t really look like the kind of person who keeps mementos,” Wyatt noted.

“You never know,” Flynn replied.

They knocked on the door, and Wyatt looked around the neighborhood as they waited. Not really anyone else out, which wasn’t surprising given that it was such a cold and gloomy day. But still… the place didn’t exactly give off an atmosphere of warmth and welcome.

How would it be, as a young boy, to come here? To have been left by his mother and then foisted onto someone who lived in a place like this, a place where people had given up hope and where you were made to feel like trash just by existing here?

Keynes had been only six when his mother had left him, according to the report. That was a tender age. Just a baby, practically. Wyatt had been three when his mother left—it was his earliest memory, watching her car drive away. Sometimes he wondered if that was where his fascination with cars had come from, as a teenager. If it wasn’t really about his father making him fix them up, but rather sprang from something deeper. A yearning. An unhealed ache.

The door opened and an older blonde woman peered out. She looked like the kind of person who had once been beautiful but hadn’t aged gracefully. Not that it was easy to age gracefully when you were overworked, struggling to make ends meet, and never got a chance to relax.

“Yes?” Ruth eyed them. “If you’re reporters, you can just go back the way you came. I answered enough questions the first time.”

“We’re police, ma’am,” Flynn said, in that charming, ever-so-slightly goofball way of his that never failed to make people melt, like he was just a big well-meaning husky dog. “We’re terribly sorry to bother you, but we’re going over the evidence for the Keynes case again, and we wanted to build a proper psychological profile.”

“Oh, what, you given up just calling him a sociopath?” Ruth snorted. “Everyone made him out to be some kind of demon and me the one who birthed him. Like anything I did could’ve turned him into what he was.”

Wyatt felt like he’d been slapped so hard he’d been knocked back two and a half decades. Like he was nine all over again and hearing Gramps and Dad argue, Gramps telling him to clean up his act, and Dad saying that nothing he could’ve done would’ve made his wife stay, would’ve stopped her from abandoning the family.

“We understand that ma’am,” Flynn said, sounding incredibly apologetic. Wyatt was glad that Flynn was working this angle because Wyatt, personally, couldn’t remember how his voice worked. “We’d like to do things properly this time. May we come in and maybe take a look at some things of Nicholas’s? Any old toys or drawings he did, perhaps?”

Ruth still looked wary, but she opened the door to them. “Kept a few things in a box. Nicky came by a few years ago, took most everything, said he was gonna burn it. But I saved a few things.”

Wyatt entered in behind Flynn, taking in the uncleaned, messy atmosphere. Ruth went into what seemed to be the bedroom and came back out with a medium-sized box. She put it on the coffee table. “Couldn’t bear to part with all of it. Maybe I should’ve been sterner with him, you know. Given him the belt some more.”

Some _more_? Wyatt swallowed and turned away to stare at the wall so his face wouldn’t betray him.

“But whatever’s odd about him was odd when he got here. Got it from his mama, I bet, she was no good. Or his daddy, whoever that was. Not like his mama ever told him. I don’t think she knew. You know she was a whore?”

“Sadie Keynes was working as a stripper before her disappearance,” Flynn said patiently. “That’s a different job from a prostitute.”

“Well, if you say so. I wasn’t surprised when services came by to say she’d wound up dead. Passed away in her sleep, some STD or something, just wasted her away.” Ruth snorted. “Anyhow. Feel free to look through all that. It has some of his things. He loved reading up on World War I and II, lots of little soldiers and tanks in there.”

Ruth walked off outside, grabbing a pack of cigarettes as she went. Wyatt rolled his eyes at Flynn the moment she was out of the space. “He was a war freak, why am I not surprised.”

Flynn didn’t take the bait. He just eyed Wyatt carefully. “You okay?”

“Sure, yeah, sure.” Wyatt shrugged. “Y’know. Always great to meet another shitty parent.” He paused. “You know, the… the parents who have to say that it wasn’t their fault? That there was nothing they could’ve done? They’re always the shitty ones.”

Flynn looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he opened the box and began to sort through it.

At first they found nothing that could really help them. Sure, they could run all of this for prints, but so much time had passed, and God only knew how often Ruth had touched all this or if she’d even cleaned everything at some point, so Wyatt figured it wouldn’t be worth it.

“It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it?” he asked, holding up a drawing that Keynes had done. He couldn’t have been very old when he’d drawn it, given the quality. It was a happy scene of a bunch of flowers dancing. “It’s like every other little kids’ drawing.”

“Nobody’s born evil,” Flynn said. “That’s what makes it even more monstrous when they become that.”

Flynn reached inside the box and pulled out another cigarette case. “Huh.” It was taped shut.

Flynn gently opened it and tipped the contents into the palm of his hand.

Baby teeth, five of them, came falling out.

Wyatt sucked in a breath, looking up from the teeth to make eye contact with Flynn.

DNA.

* * *

Lucy waited until the boys got back before she left. She wanted to keep an eye on Keynes in the meantime in case he tried something.

The elevator dinged open and she stood up, ready to explain that she hated to leave but Jess, Jiya, and Amy were doing a trashy movie night and she’d promised she’d go…

…but it wasn’t Wyatt and Flynn exiting the elevator.

“Emma,” Lucy said, walking up. The redhead was certainly dressed nicely. Like she was going out for a night on the town. “How nice of you to turn yourself in.”

“I’m Dr. Neiman,” Emma replied. “And I’m here because you’ve apparently arrested a patient of mine? Michael was very kind in letting me try some new surgery technology on him. I would hate to think that he’s now paying a price for it.”

“You care a lot about your patients.”

“What can I say? I’m a caring person. I think about people other than myself and my precious little family.”

Lucy glared at her while Emma glared right back, the space between them flaring hot with the intensity of their mutual hatred.

The elevator opened, and Wyatt and Flynn stepped out. “Lucy, we’ve got—” Wyatt stopped. “Oh.”

Emma turned on her heel to face the men, smiling. “Ah, hello, I’m Dr. Kelly Neiman. Are you two the detectives in charge of Michael? I’d like to see him, please.”

Wyatt gaped at her like he wasn’t quite sure how she had the audacity to be doing this. Flynn looked like he’d swallowed a handful of nails. “I’m afraid we’re not finished with him, but you’re welcome to wait in the break room and get yourself some coffee.”

How Flynn managed to make that sound like a death threat, Lucy didn’t know, but she was glad for it. It was just one of Flynn’s many talents.

Emma arched an eyebrow at him but didn’t dispute it, her heels clicking against the floor as she walked into the break room.

“That’s _our _coffee machine,” Wyatt grumbled. “Lucy bought that for us.”

“Let’s deal with Keynes,” Flynn said. He looked over at Lucy. “We got something, and Denise got the lab to rush it through and make it the top priority. But until then we have to keep him here. I want to see if I can get him to crack.”

“I have to go,” Lucy admitted. “I have a thing with Amy, I promised her.”

“Of course.” Flynn walked over. “One of us should get to retain some semblance of normalcy.”

Lucy smiled at him, scoffing. “Yes. Well. Keep in touch.”

“You, too.”

Lucy could tell he was worried for her, but she didn’t see anything to be worried about. Emma and Keynes were here, in the precinct. Flynn should be worried about Wyatt and about himself.

That was a sobering thought. Emma wasn’t here just to watch. She was here for another reason. Lucy crossed over to Wyatt and hugged him tightly. “Stay safe.” She then walked over to Flynn and did the same.

Both men hugged her back, and then she waved goodbye. They were in the precinct, surrounded by other cops. It was going to be fine.

* * *

Flynn plopped down into the chair across from Keynes. “Sorry to keep you waiting. We were a little busy having a chat. You might be surprised who with.”

“My lawyer?” Keynes asked. “Because I’d like one.”

He was doing a good job with the act, not giving in or letting it drop this whole time. Flynn intended to fix that.

“It was your mother, Ruth.” Flynn paused. “Oh, wait, I’m sorry. She’s not your real mother. I’m sure she made that very clear to you, just as she did to us. Your real mother, she said, abandoned you.”

Keynes went very still, but there was no flicker of recognition or anger in his eyes. Flynn pressed on. He knew he was doing exactly what he had chastised Lucy for doing earlier, but he had to try and get something out of Keynes. A proper confession would end all of this.

“You know what I found interesting? How she said that nothing she ever did could’ve turned you into what you are.” Flynn leaned back in his chair, clucking his tongue. “I find that hard to believe, but it must be galling, knowing that woman isn’t even going to take responsibility for what she put you through. Was it just the belt? Or was there more?”

“I don’t know who this person is,” Keynes said, but there was an edge to his voice, an edge that Flynn recognized, that hadn’t been there before.

“Something I noticed… is how she’s blonde, and was once quite beautiful. I think your mother, Sadie, was that her name? She was blonde, too, wasn’t she? Very beautiful as well. I’ve seen the pictures. It was sad, how she died. You must’ve realized how alone you were then.

“Two women that you called mother, both blonde and beautiful, and they failed you. The picture all starts to come together now.” Flynn leaned forward again. “It must hurt you so much to know that Wyatt Logan of all people was the one who figured you out. You want to be seen as smart, as a genius, and this backwater hick who barely finished high school is the one who brought it all crashing down for you. He had you pinned on that first try.”

Keynes stayed silent, but his nostrils flared. His eyes were intense, glittering.

“That’s why you kill them, isn’t it? To get back at the mother who left you and the mother who abused you. You don’t kill Ruth, of course. It’s so much more painful for her to watch all those women die, knowing she’s the reason for it. Knowing it’s her fault. That was what you were going to do me, wasn’t it? But you know what? It doesn’t change the truth.” Flynn leaned in even more. “I think Ruth was the first person you ever wanted to kill.”

Keynes’ face was now sporting two spots of pink high up on his cheekbones. “I don’t know who you think I am,” he said slowly, deliberately, his voice shaking a bit as he clung to his lifeline, struggled through his script, “but I am not a murderer. I’m Michael Bordreau.”

He was so close. Flynn could taste it. Emma was the cold-blooded one. Keynes could be pushed into madness. And Flynn fully intended to push him right off that edge—

The door opened. “Flynn?” It was Denise. “A word.”

“God dammit!” he snapped as Denise took him into her office. “I had him, I was so close, he was right there—”

“He’s not Keynes,” Denise said.

Flynn halted. “What?”

“Not according to the DNA. It says that the DNA found from those teeth does not match the DNA sample we took from him today.”

Flynn’s gaze darted out to the break room, where Emma was setting down her coffee and standing up. Their eyes locked, and she smiled at him.

“She did this, she did this _somehow_…”

“Of course she did,” Denise snapped. “She’s got a friend somewhere, she bribed someone or messed up the data, maybe she planted those baby teeth, who knows! She’s had months and months to plan for this while we were dealing with your injury. But I can’t keep him here, not without the DNA match!”

“So we’re just going to let him go!?” Flynn felt hollow inside, like someone had just yanked out all of his intestines, his lungs, his heart, leaving him with nothing to keep him upright or sustain him.

Two uniformed cops took Keynes out of the interrogation room.

“No,” Flynn heard Wyatt say, and he had to yank open the door to grab Wyatt before Wyatt could do something stupid. “What the fuck, what are you guys doing!?”

“We have to let him go,” Denise explained again, and Wyatt gave Keynes a look of such burning, desperate hatred that Flynn was almost convinced it would melt Keynes down or boil him alive.

Alas, they had no such luck.

Emma smiled at Keynes as the officers released him, looking at him the way a mother would look at her child, or a person would look at their pet project. It sent a shiver down Flynn’s spine. With Emma pulling Keynes’ strings, he was now ten times more dangerous.

The two of them started to walk towards the elevator, but then Emma paused.

Keynes pressed the button for the elevator while Emma fished in her purse, pulling out her phone. Whoever was calling her, it made her smile.

Flynn watched, still holding onto Wyatt, as they stepped into the elevator and Emma pressed the phone to her ear. She smiled and mouthed two words, looking straight at Flynn.

_It’s done_.

The elevator doors slid shut.

* * *

Ugh, parking was a nightmare. Lucy got out of her car, grumbling. She’d had to park all the way down the street from Amy and Jess’s apartment. She should’ve just taken the subway.

As she locked her car and walked onto the sidewalk, her phone rang. Huh, that was Amy’s ringtone. Probably just her sister wondering where the hell Lucy was. They were all paranoid, on high alert, and who could blame them?

“Hello?” she answered.

“L-Lucy?” Amy sounded terrified. “Lucy, please, you have to help—they’re inside, they’re _inside_—”

“Amy!?” Fear spiked in her. “Amy, where are you, are you in the apartment!?” What was going on!? Emma and Keynes were at the precinct, they couldn’t be attacking Amy and Jess—and Jiya, fuck, Jiya was there too—

Something sharp stabbed her in the side and Lucy cried out, dropping the phone in surprise and pain. She turned and twisted, trying to see what it was… a needle… She felt vaguely sick, but she couldn't heave anything up. It was like she was frozen, no, like she was going limp.

The world started to swim and she tried to open her mouth, tried to scream, but no sound came out. She stumbled, her sense of balance falling away, and collapsed, landing hard on—a chair? A chair that was moving…

She managed to roll her head up, to try and see who had drugged her, who was taking her.

It was Amy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This plot is taken from the episodes Disciple (6x09) and Resurrection (7x14).
> 
> The poem Flynn begins to recite is ‘Wild Geese’ by Mary Oliver. Flynn’s Christmas carol joke is a reference to The West Wing, specifically the tenth episode of the second season, “Noël.”


	12. Chapter 12

Wyatt stared up at the murder board. “There has to be something we missed, there has to be! They couldn’t have known that we would arrest Keynes, this can’t all have just… gone to plan like this…”

The sheer anger, no, the _wrath _he’d felt watching Keynes and Emma disappear into the elevator, smug looks on their faces, was like nothing he’d ever felt before. God fucking damn it, when was it going to end!? When were they going to get to put this all behind them for good? When would they stop having to deal with these maniacs?

Flynn was pacing again. “I can’t get a hold of Lucy, her phone keeps going to voicemail.”

Rufus pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Jiya. They’re probably in the middle of the movie and Lucy’s phone fell between the couch cushions or something, who knows. Jiya said they were watching all those movies you make fun of, like the so bad they’re good kind.”

Wyatt went back to staring at the board while Flynn called Lucy again. “She always picks up her phone, she always has it on her, ever since her car accident.”

“Hold on, Jiya’s picking up,” Rufus said.

Huh. The guy who called in Susan’s murder to the police… “Hey, this guy, Ed, did he call 9-1-1?”

“Hmm?” Rufus looked up. “No, he… hold on… Jiya, hey my love, the guy who called in Susan’s body, did he call a general line or…? No? Yeah? Okay.” Rufus covered the phone with his hand. “She says he called the precinct directly.”

Wyatt tilted his head. Ed Turner. Turner. Ed. E, D, T, U, R, N, E, R.

Or, to look at it another way…

R-E-T-U-R-N-E-D

A cold lump formed in his throat. “Does anyone know what this guy looks like!? Did anyone speak to him, anyone at the scene, did they interview him!?”

Rufus asked Jiya, then shook his head. “No. He wasn’t there when they arrived at the scene.”

“They wanted this,” Wyatt said. “They wanted us to find Susan’s body. Why—we assumed that this guy found the body and that Keynes didn’t have time to move it somewhere, right? That they never intended to kill Susan and they were rushing. But if Keynes was the one who called it in…”

“Then all the rest was planned too,” Rufus said. “Us arresting Keynes, all of it.”

Flynn growled and hung up his call. “Rufus, for God’s sake, is Lucy there!?”

Rufus repeated the question, and his face fell a little, going tight as he shook his head. “She hasn’t arrived. Jiya said… Amy hasn’t heard from her.”

Wyatt looked at Flynn, who looked like he’d been stabbed in the throat. “Call it,” Flynn said hoarsely, heading for Denise’s office. “Get everyone on this, now!”

* * *

Rufus followed Wyatt and Flynn to Amy and Jess’s apartment, their sirens and lights blaring, his heart hammering. He had just spoken to Jiya, who had assured him that Amy and Jess were with her and all right, but there was so much that could happen in between then and arriving at their apartment, so many blocks, so much traffic…

They parked and rushed up the stairs. Flynn banged on the front door so hard Rufus was worried he’d actually knock it off its hinges.

“Jesus!” Jess opened the door, glaring at him. “You don’t have to break my door down!”

“She still isn’t answering,” Amy said as they entered, Flynn and Jess glaring at each other, obviously both stressed and taking it out on each other a little bit. “But she has one of those find your phone things, so I activated it, I know the password.”

Rufus crossed to Jiya, who hugged him tightly. Rufus knew she must’ve had a hell of a time trying to keep Amy and Jess somewhat calm.

“Great.” He nodded at Jess. “If you want to help, Jess, you can, you’re an officer, but Denise is bringing in a detail for Jiya and Amy. None of us are supposed to be alone. We don’t know what else Emma and Keynes have planned or who they’ll try and hurt next.”

“We don’t know she’s hurt!” Wyatt yelped, his voice high-pitched and strangled.

“Breathe, puppy,” Flynn murmured, reaching out without even looking at Wyatt and kneading Wyatt’s shoulder.

“Rich, coming from you,” Wyatt murmured in return, but he clasped his hand over Flynn’s.

“Found it!” Amy crowed. “It says she’s just… down the street?” A look of confusion crossed her face. “Just down the street? Why would it be there?”

“We’re going to find out,” Flynn said grimly.

Jess grabbed her gun and her badge and they set out, paranoia thrumming in Rufus’s veins. He had no idea what they were going to find when they got there. It couldn’t be Lucy’s dead body, could it? Emma wouldn’t just kill Lucy without fanfare, that wasn’t her way. It wasn’t Keynes’ way, either, especially not when he could draw it out and give Wyatt and Flynn maximum pain. But what if she was there? What if she was lying there unconscious, drugged up, or… mutilated somehow?

His heart raced. He didn’t know if he could hold both Wyatt and Flynn if they tried to unleash their rage, if he could keep them both together at once as they fell apart. When one of them was falling apart it was bad enough, and usually the only person who could pick up the pieces was the other one. If both of them were down for the count? Fuck, yeah, Rufus did not want to be in the middle of that mess.

To say nothing of Amy.

But when they got to the spot—there was nothing there. Just an empty sidewalk.

“There!” Flynn spotted it, a phone lying on the sidewalk.

“And that’s Lucy’s car,” Wyatt said, his voice thick.

Rufus approached the car with Wyatt while Flynn picked up the phone. As Rufus got closer, he noticed something odd about the windows. It was a cold night, and they’d fogged up a little, and if he just… tilted his head just right…

Wyatt let out a pained noise as Rufus realized what it was. On the back window of the car someone (and no prizes for guessing who) had written, _help her_.

* * *

Flynn felt like he wanted to claw his own skin off. Everyone was doing all that they could to find Lucy and he appreciated that, he understood that, but it still wasn’t enough, it wasn’t _enough_, they had to find her, they had to get to Lucy before it was too late. He didn’t know what Emma and Keynes had planned, but knowing them, it was going to be a spectacle, it was going to be dramatic, and it was going to be horrible.

He couldn’t let that happen, not to Lucy, not… not again. He couldn’t go through this again.

Flynn paced up and down the precinct as Denise made calls and roused basically the entire city of police, an easy thing given that Lucy was such a high-profile New York citizen. Rufus was heading up a tech team while Jess had Amy and Mason in the break room to help calm Amy down and break the news to Mason. Jiya was keeping them all steadily supplied with coffee.

Wyatt—

“Hey.” Wyatt tugged on Flynn’s jacket lapel as he reached the end of the room and turned to start pacing towards the other direction. “Garcia.”

Wyatt didn’t look much better than Flynn felt, and he wanted to comfort Wyatt, to say or do something that would help to make it better, but he was drowning himself and he had no idea how to help Wyatt without just dragging him down deeper into the ocean.

“I can’t,” he managed. His voice sounded harsh, a whisper, and he remembered the last time he’d sounded like this, when Wyatt had drawn a blanket over him on the couch and left a glass of water and a muffin and a book on the coffee table, a book titled _São Paulo Nights_, and Flynn had woken up and read it for nothing better to do. “I can’t do this again, Wyatt.”

He’d break. He was strong, or so his mother had once told him. _You and I are the same, Garcia, the world batters us but we have deep roots and we may creak and moan and bend, but we don’t break. _But Maria had only been able to handle so much heartbreak, and so it was with her son. He wasn’t strong enough for this.

Wyatt swallowed. “Garcia…”

Flynn’s phone rang on the desk.

He dove for it, Wyatt shifting out of the way to avoid getting knocked to the floor, and Flynn jammed the phone to his ear. “Yes?”

“Flynn?” It was her, it was _her_, it was Lucy. “Flynn, please, help me, please, you’ve got to help me—Flynn—”

“I’m here, Lucy, tell me where you are—” Wyatt and Rufus had both scrambled for other phones and were now tracing the call.

“I’m scared,” Lucy was crying. “I’m s-scared, Flynn, p-please help me—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay to be scared, Lucy, we’re coming, but you need to breathe and tell me—what do you see around you? Can you tell me anything about what happened and where you are?”

He’d never heard her sound so terrified or out of control. “They’re gonna, they’re going to—no, no!”

Lucy screamed, the sound ripped out of her, pure terror and agony—a gunshot rang out—and the call went dead.

Flynn threw the phone against the floor and it shattered, plastic flying everywhere.

“We traced it,” Rufus said, his chest heaving. “We traced the call.”

* * *

Emma hung up the phone. “Very good.”

Lucy stared at the girl in front of her, still bound and gagged, but now hanging limp, a bullet wound in her temple. “You said you’d let her go.” She felt… stupid, dumb, a child, for believing it, but what other choice had there been? It was call and scream or do nothing and let… let them…

Keynes sighed, gently nudging the body tied to the chair in front of him. “It’s not as fun when you shoot them.”

“Patience, Nicholas, how many times do I have to keep telling you?” Emma sighed. “Take care of her body.”

“No.” Lucy tugged hard at the ropes holding her to her chair. “No, no, no, you can’t make me leave her.” She knew she was in the grip of hysteria now but she couldn’t stop herself. “You can’t make me leave her!”

Emma prepared another needle. “Like I said when we started this, Lucy, you’ll find you really don’t get much say in the matter.”

The needle was plunged into her neck. The last thing she saw before it all swam into black again was Keynes dragging Amy’s dead body away.

* * *

The call was traced to parking lot behind a building that held various offices. Wyatt figured that they had probably dragged Lucy into one of the offices now, but that she’d been outside, maybe even trying to get away, when she’d made the call.

SWAT fanned out, Denise giving orders, while Flynn and Wyatt went around the back. “It was right here,” Rufus said, “according to the tracker.” He nodded towards a pay phone.

A pay phone that had a body underneath it.

“No.” Wyatt didn’t recognize his own voice. It sounded like the kind of sound an animal in pain would make. “No…”

Flynn rushed over, crouching down and gently taking the person’s face in his hands. Wyatt saw Flynn’s shoulders slump, and he felt his stomach heave. They were too late, they’d failed her, and Flynn—

“It’s not her,” Flynn choked out. He got to his feet, swaying like he might pass out. “It’s… it’s a lookalike. It looks like…like Amy.”

Wyatt got a head rush so bad he felt a bit like fainting. “It’s not her?”

Flynn shook his head. “Oh, fuck,” he murmured, turning away and running a hand through his hair, broken Croatian spilling out of his mouth too quiet for Wyatt to understand even if he spoke the language.

“Jesus,” Rufus said.

Wyatt moved closer and saw that it was in fact a girl who looked exactly like Amy. It was disturbing. She was tied up, with a gag over her mouth, and had a fresh bullet wound in her head. “We must’ve just missed them, that blood’s fresh.”

“That can’t be Amy,” Rufus murmured. “Amy’s at the precinct. She was at the precinct when Lucy called us.”

“Emma was making people look like us,” Wyatt pointed out. “And both Emma and Keynes were at the precinct when Lucy was taken—someone else had to do it for them. What if it was this girl? They—tricked her somehow. Used her. Then got rid of her to… tie up loose ends.”

Rufus sighed and shrugged as if to say _who even fucking knows, man, your guess is as good as mine._

“Let’s see if we can get DNA,” Flynn ordered, looking around. “If Lucy grabbed the phone and we have proof she was here…”

Wyatt walked up to the pay phone. There was a lump on top of it. “Flynn.”

He heard Flynn walked up behind him. It wasn’t a lump, it was a small package, made out of brown paper. The kind you’d get at a post office.

Flynn was wearing gloves, so he grabbed the package. Wyatt felt like his lungs were filling with cement as Flynn turned it and he saw that on it was written, _Garcia Flynn and Wyatt Logan._

Wyatt couldn’t help but notice Flynn’s fingers shaking a bit as he opened the package and carefully dumped the contents into the palm of his hand. It was a small video camera and…

“Lucy’s necklace,” Wyatt breathed, the gold locket shining in the light from the streetlamp up above them.

Rufus called for CSU and Flynn opened the locket. “Fuck.”

Inside were two pictures: one of Amy, and one of Amy and Lucy together. Lucy in her photo had her eyes crossed out with a red pen.

Wyatt had never seen the inside of Lucy’s locket before, but he was willing to bet everything he had that wasn’t how the picture had been before Emma had gotten a hold of it.

Flynn snapped the locket shut, and then opened the camcorder.

“Are you sure you should be doing that?” Rufus asked taking the locket to put into a bag for evidence. Wyatt felt like he was inhaling, but he couldn’t get any air in, it was all too tight, Lucy’s locket being put into evidence like it was just another… like it was an object with no meaning or like she was… she was already dead…

Flynn hit play on the camcorder. “This was a message to us. Emma wants us to see this.”

“It could just be playing into her game,” Rufus cautioned.

“Maybe,” Flynn replied. “But we might be able to get ahead of her.”

Wyatt wanted to see, as much as it might hurt. He needed to know if Lucy was alive.

The video started, showing Lucy propped up against the wall by the pay phone, tied up. Keynes must’ve been the one holding the camera, because Emma was the one lightly patting Lucy’s cheek to wake her up. “Morning, Princess. Or, well, not quite morning.”

Lucy stirred, looking around groggily. Wyatt felt Flynn stiffen. “What…”

“Say hello, Lucy, don’t you want to say hi to your sister?” Emma said.

Wyatt felt something hot and acidic rise in his throat, burning, as the camcorder got a perfect shot of Lucy’s horrified face alighting on someone just out of frame. The Amy lookalike.

“Let her go,” Lucy spat. She started struggling against the bonds, fury in her limbs. “Let her go, Emma, or I swear to God…”

Rufus swore quietly.

Someone out of frame, the Amy lookalike, most likely, started trying to speak. It was muffled and incoherent. “She’s gagged,” Wyatt realized.

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Emma said, picking up the pay phone. “You’re going to call your boys, and you’re going to beg. And I want you to beg well. If you don’t, I’ll kill her. Understood?”

Lucy gave Emma a look of virulent hatred, and Wyatt felt so damn proud of her in that moment he wanted to hug her until his arms fell off.

But Amy’s life was at stake, or so Lucy thought. And Lucy would do anything for Amy. Pride be damned.

Emma must’ve taken Lucy’s silence as an answer, because she pressed the phone to Lucy’s ear and mouth and dialed.

The call went just as they’d heard it earlier—but at the end, when Lucy started screaming, Wyatt realized why.

The gun went off, the muffled screams of the unseen person stopped, and there was the soft thump of a body slumping against a heavy object, like a chair or the ground. Lucy screamed, tears sliding down her face, and Wyatt prayed to God they found her before Lucy went completely feral because there was no way, no way in hell, that Lucy was going to be content to live in a world where her sister was gone.

Emma drugged Lucy, who slumped into her arms, and Emma nodded at the person recording. Keynes. “I’m sure it comforts you to know this is the kind of thing she’s going through,” Emma said sweetly. “Watch it as many times as you want, boys, it’s the last time you’ll see her.”

She nodded again, and the recording cut out.

Rufus took the camcorder from Flynn, probably before Flynn could smash it. He bagged it just like the necklace. “We’ll see what we can get from this.”

“They’ve taken her,” Flynn growled. “They’re one step ahead of us and they’ve taken her and we’ve got no idea where. And time is running out. Emma’s not going to keep her alive forever. We’re being played like fiddles.”

“We’ll get her,” Rufus said, with a lot more conviction than Wyatt felt.

“Guys.” Denise ran up. “Jess just called from the precinct, we have a witness who says they saw a woman matching Lucy’s descriptions being wheeled in a wheelchair three blocks from here.”

“We’ll check cam footage,” Rufus said. “Let’s go.”

Wyatt grabbed Flynn’s forearm. “C’mon. We’ll find her. She’s alive. That means there’s hope.”

Flynn looked at him, and Wyatt felt like he’d been knocked sideways with the gratitude and warmth he saw there. “I couldn’t be doing this without you, you know that, right?”

Wyatt swallowed down all the words that crammed up in his throat. _Now isn’t the time. _“I’m just trying to… to be better than I was, look after the people I care about the right way.”

Flynn reached up and squeezed Wyatt’s shoulder, then pulled him along after the others.

* * *

Jess had been sitting with Amy and Mason for most of this, unable to reassure them but hoping that her presence would do… something. The witness who'd seen Lucy in a wheelchair was somewhat helpful, but Jess suspected that canvasing security footage was going to turn out to be a bust. Emma planned too well to let that kind of thing trip her up.

When the team got back, she finally stood up and moved into the bullpen. “Well?”

Flynn and Wyatt strode past her, their heads bent together, not talking but clearly blind and deaf to anything that wasn’t them, Lucy, or their prey. Rufus stopped in front of Jess and sighed. “Lucy was there, but Emma was taunting us.”

“Then let’s go get her.”

“We can’t, we don’t know where she is.”

“Go to Keynes’ apartment, then.”

“Keynes is still legally dead,” Rufus reminded her. “As far as the law’s concerned, that man is Michael Bordreau—good luck to whatever poor bastard is the real Michael Bordreau if he’s even still alive—and we can’t touch him.”

“You just said that Emma—”

“It was a video.” Rufus lowered his voice. “A video where they had a lookalike of Amy. They forced Lucy to call the precinct or they’d kill ‘Amy’, and then they shot the fake Amy anyway. Left her body for us to find. But Keynes was filming the video, and he didn’t speak once, so we don’t have footage of him or his voice. Defense will argue that anyone could be holding the camera. And they’d be right to argue that, we can’t just go on instinct, we need proof.”

“Proof.” The word tasted like death in her mouth.

“Yeah, Jess, proof,” Rufus replied, sarcasm entering his tone. “Y’know, the thing that nobody conveniently requires when it’s a black man being arrested but the moment a good-looking white guy’s on trial the public’s clamoring for it? We can’t convict him without it, and if we try not to—”

“But he’s _Keynes_.”

“Not in the eyes of the law! Innocent until proven guilty, Jess! That’s why we have it, so that it’s harder to catch one guy like Keynes but a hundred innocent people don’t get wrongly convicted.”

“We have to do something,” Jess snapped, banging her fist on the desk.

“I am doing something,” Rufus snapped right back. “We’re going to review the video, see what we can dig up.”

Wyatt walked up to them, looking beat. “I tried to get Flynn to come home, get some rest, but he’s not budging.”

“You look pretty shot yourself,” Jess said, an idea springing into her mind—a horrible, bad idea, but hey, she was already walking on black ice with her little… side job, so what was one more thing at this point? “Why don’t I drive you home? We can’t have both you and Flynn dead on your feet. It’ll give me something to do.”

“Good idea,” Rufus said, sounding relieved that he didn’t have to talk her down from tearing the place apart.

Jess patted Wyatt on the shoulder. “Get your things.”

She poked her head back into the break room. “Amy? Baby?”

Amy was sitting on the couch with Mason, the two of them holding hands, their heads bowed. Amy looked up. Jess’s heart ached at the sight of her girlfriend’s blotchy face, her swollen eyes, her exhausted expression.

“I’m going to drop Wyatt off at his place, I’ll be back in a bit.”

Amy gently moved Mason’s hand away and got up, walking over to her. “You sure?”

“Flynn’s here, we’re working on some things.”

“Any leads?”

Jess sighed. “We’ll tell you as soon as we have something for you, okay babe? I promise.” She wrapped her arms around Amy’s waist and Amy folded into her, clinging. Jess rubbed Amy’s back. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry I can’t—I can’t take this pain away from you. I’m sorry I can’t just snap my fingers and fix this instantly.”

“It’s okay,” Amy whispered into Jess’s shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”

“I’m going to take care of this, okay?” Jess promised. “I’ll take care of this. Don’t you worry. I’ll fix it, I’ll find a way.”

Amy squeezed her tightly. “Just be safe, please. They pretended to kill you once. They might do it for real.”

“They can try,” Jess said grimly.

She pulled back and kissed Amy on the nose. “Here, take my card, order some takeout, okay? You need to eat and hydrate.” She nodded at Mason, who wearily nodded back, and then went to grab Wyatt.

Wyatt was silent on the car ride over. Not that Jess was all that surprised. Wyatt never knew when to shut the fuck up except when he was too sad to think of any words.

Jess parked in front of his building. “Do you want me to come up with you?”

He shook his head, staring out the window. He’d been doing that the entire time. Jess didn’t think he was actually seeing anything on the other side of the glass. “No. But thanks.”

Wyatt turned his head to look at her, his eyes heavy. “Too bad it’s not like last time.”

Jess knew what he meant. His father. “Too bad.”

“Try and get Flynn to sleep. I told Denise to call me in a few hours. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Jess watched as he got out of the car. “Why are you really sleeping here, Wyatt? Why not just take a nap in the break room?”

Wyatt shoved his hands into his pockets. “I know it’s stupid but… if she escapes—and she could escape, she’s smart enough, she’s strong enough to do it—where’s she gonna run? She might want to come here, if she’s… mentally, she’s just not… in a right space. She might not think to go to the station.” He paused. “Also if I stayed there I’d just keep babysitting Flynn until I went insane.”

“You are insane,” Jess replied. “Get some good sleep. I’ll see you later.”

Wyatt nodded, giving her a half wave, and Jess pulled away.

She didn’t head back to the precinct.

Keynes’ apartment, or Bordreau’s, however you wanted to think of it, was silent and dark when she approached it. On the one hand Keynes might not be there. He might be helping Emma do whatever the hell she was up to with Lucy. But on the other hand, he had to keep a relatively low profile. He’d proven in the eyes of the law that he was Michael Bordreau but he knew that the team knew differently and that they’d be waiting for a slip up. He had to keep acting the part, at least for a short bit of time.

Jess rapped politely on the front door, since her mother had taught her manners. A few moments later it opened a crack, and Keynes stared out at her.

“Who’re you?” he asked. Still playing the part then.

No matter.

Jess kicked the door open, sending it flying back and hitting the wall as Keynes stumbled and nearly fell on his ass. “What the fuck!?”

Jess closed the door behind her and locked it. “Where is she?” she snarled. She kicked out, stomping down hard with the heel of her boot, smashing Keynes in the face and sending him crashing to the floor.

“Where is who!?” Keynes asked, crawling backwards. “Please, I don’t know who you’re talking about!”

Jess advanced on him. “It’s just you and me, weasel. You can drop the act.”

“It’s not an act, I don’t know what you mean—”

“Nicky, Nicky, Nicky.” Jess clucked her tongue. “Come on, now. You’re supposed to be this super genius! This clever adversary! Our big baddie. You’re supposed to be the season finale!”

She brought her heel down again, right between his legs, and Keynes howled. Jess bent down, picking him up by the collar, and used the leverage of his weight and hers to send his head crashing into the doorway to his kitchen. Keynes groaned in pain.

“Ooh, that had to hurt.” Jess dropped him again.

Wyatt had always been a brawler who tried to emulate boxers. Rufus took Jiu Jitsu. Flynn, who the fuck even knew, Jess just knew that he would kick your ass and not break a sweat doing it. Personally, she’d always liked Krav Maga. Brutal, hard-hitting, and aiming to put your opponent in as much pain as they could possibly stand until they died at your feet.

“I know who you are. And you know that I know who you are. So let’s stop playing games, and maybe I’ll let you get through this with only a few of your bones broken.” She crouched down in front of him. “So, you wanna tell me what your plan is here?”

Keynes stared at her with dark eyes. It was like looking at the bottom of the ocean.

Jess smirked. “C’mon, Nicky. You must want to tell me. Your type can’t stop themselves from bragging. It’s all about Flynn, isn’t it? Hmm? Why are you after him?”

Keynes didn’t say anything. He just stared at her.

Jess shrugged and stood up. “Fine by me.”

She kicked him, hard, right in the face again, and she heard the satisfying crunch of bone. “Lucy, I get, with Emma. But you? Doesn’t make sense. Why do you hate my friends, huh!?” She got on top of him, her hand at his throat, pressing him into the floor as she bore down on his trachea, cutting off his airflow. With her other hand, she pulled out her gun.

“I will start with your knees, but don’t think I won’t aim for the goddamn balls,” she warned. “If you have any.” She could feel it behind her eyes, building and building, the same fury that had choked her when she’d seen one too many bruises on Wyatt’s body, when she’d seen that rabbit-run fear in his gaze.

Jeb Logan paid. Keynes would pay too.

Keynes gave her slow snake grin, his skin stretched over his forehead and eyes making him look like a skull in the dark, blood pouring out of his nose. “Go ahead,” he rasped. “Killer cop? That’ll make headlines. And you still won’t know where she is. She’s going to die—and so are the other two. Wyatt—first—so Flynn—watches them both.”

“Yeah, you tried that last time, I’m taking points away for lack of originality.” She cocked her gun. “Look I’ve got a theory. I think that men like you are really cowards. You can’t actually stand all that much pain when it’s turned on yourself no matter how fuckin’ edgy you try to act. Do you want me to test that theory?”

Keynes spat his blood in her face. Jess didn’t flinch. She pressed the gun to his kneecap. “I’m running out of patience.”

“Y’know… I thought… Wyatt would be the one here,” Keynes wheezed.

“Yeah, Wyatt looks like he could be mistaken for a white lone gunman who everyone says kept to himself and was a promising young man in school,” Jess acknowledged. “But I was the dangerous one in our marriage.”

Keynes grinned at her again, but then this gaze slid away, to something over her shoulder.

Jess froze. Fuck, if Emma had just gotten the drop on her…

“Don’t.”

It was worse than Emma.

Jess kept her gaze and her grip on Keynes. “Amy,” she said, her voice level but warning, “What are you doing here.”

“You said you’d fix it, Jess, I know you, I knew that meant you were going to do something phenomenally stupid.”

Jess risked a look behind her and saw Amy glaring at Keynes as if to dare him to make a move. “Get out of here, before you become an accessory.”

“I’m not going to become an accessory to anything,” Amy replied, and Jess was swiftly reminded that the Preston women were a stubborn bunch. “Because you’re not going to do this.”

Jess pressed the gun to Keynes temple to keep him from trying anything as she focused on Amy. “I can end it right here. One of them gone, no more games.”

“And Emma will kill Lucy immediately in retaliation,” Amy shot back. “And you’ll go to jail for murder. I’m not letting that happen, I’m not risking either of you.”

Jess stood, keeping her gun trained on Keynes, planting her foot on his chest and pressing down hard. “Amy—”

“No.” Amy shook her head. “I know you do a lot of things that I don’t know about and I know you’re doing things that could get you in trouble and I’m okay with it, I trust you, but this—not this. This is going to ruin all of us. We’re going to do this the right way, okay, Jess? The _right _way.”

Keynes laughed. “God, she’s so cute. You’re just so cute. Not quite my type, but—”

Jess stomped on his sternum—and Keynes caught her leg as she moved, yanking it up, sending her crashing to the floor. The back of her head smacked hard against the wood and she saw stars, the breath momentarily knocked out of her lungs. “Amy!” she croaked. “Run!”

Amy scrambled out of the way and Jess crawled for her gun, determined not to let Keynes get it, but Keynes wasn’t interested in that. He just hurried to his feet and dashed out the door.

“He’s getting away!” Jess yelled, managing to grab her gun as Amy leapt further out of the way, tried to correct course, and then leapt forward gracelessly to try and snatch Keynes’ leg and trip him up.

Jess got to her feet and raised her gun, but Keynes was already out the door. She dashed after him—but she knew it was useless. “Fuck!”

She could run after him, but that would cause a whole other kettle of fish. Keynes could yell for help and she’d be in major trouble, with Denise and God only knew who else in the police department, maybe a couple lawyers as well. He could protest innocence and even claim to press charges if he wanted.

Amy sank back against the wall. “I’m sorry, Jess.”

Jess kicked at the door, then holstered her gun. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, it is, I distracted you.”

Jess scrubbed at her face. “Look, it’s done and I’m not—am I kind of pissed he got away, yeah, but—I don’t know. I don’t know, maybe you’re right. I don’t know. I clearly wasn’t scaring him.” The air was harsh in her lungs. “I wanted to scare him. I wanted him to know _fear_. That’s what—empty people like that, they only respond to power, or lack of it. He wants power over other people because somewhere inside of himself he’s scared and he doesn’t know how to handle it. That’s all they respond to, is shit like that, they’re worse than animals. A fucking lower life form.”

Amy approached her cautiously, and for a heartbeat Jess was terrified that it was because Amy was now scared of her—but then, no, she realized, Amy looked concerned, not scared. Concerned for her. “He’s ready for that. He’s prepared for that. For anger and brute force.” She paused, then reached out and took Jess’s face in her hands. Jess closed her eyes as she felt Amy draw closer, until their foreheads were pressed together.

“I’m glad I stopped you,” Amy whispered. “They would’ve found you out and you would’ve gone to prison.”

This wasn’t one of her neat little assassinations, or any of the other convenient jobs she did for Cahill, it was true. This was messy, this was personal. Her fingerprints were all over the place. Any neighbor could’ve heard the noise.

She’d just wanted him to feel pain. To be afraid.

“He’ll get back at us for that, somehow,” Jess said, her voice dull.

She felt Amy take a deep breath, and she opened her eyes. Amy was staring at her. “Lucy’s smart,” Amy promised. “She’ll find a way to get a message to us, or to get out. And we’re smart. We’ll win this. And we’ll win it the right way. Not by getting you arrested for murder or getting Emma angry and making it worse for Lucy.”

Amy pulled away, taking Jess’s hand as she did so, ready to lead her out of the apartment.

Jess didn’t follow. “Amy?”

Amy looked back at her.

Jess looked down at their joined hands, then up at Amy. “You didn’t want me to murder him because it would make Emma retaliate. Because I would go to prison.”

Amy nodded.

“…not because you thought it was wrong to murder him.”

Something hard flashed in Amy’s eyes. “I said we’re going to do this the right way,” she said, calmly. “I never said that meant he wasn’t going to end up dead.”

* * *

Flynn brought his coffee cup into the break room to rinse it out and refill it. “Where’s Amy?” he asked, glancing over at Mason.

Mason shrugged. “Said she had to go help Jess with something. They should be back shortly.”

As if they’d been summoned, Flynn saw Jess and Amy exit the elevator, Jess looking a bit roughed up. Flynn decided it was best if he didn’t ask and turned to Mason again instead. “How are you holding up?”

Mason sighed. “I’m not sure. I haven’t broken down into total insanity so I suppose that means I’m doing all right, but then again I doubt Lear thought he was insane, either.”

“I always took you as more of a Polonius type,” Flynn observed.

“That hurts, I’ll have you know.”

Flynn winked at him, and Mason gave him a weary smile in return.

His desk phone rang.

Shit. He set his coffee cup down and dashed out, hoping it was Jiya from downstairs or Rufus from the tech department, someone, anyone with information, an update, something—

“Hello?”

Jess and Amy were walking over, both looking tired. Amy waved at him.

“He sleeps so peacefully.”

Flynn froze, his heart stuttering to a stop. “Nicholas.”

“Garcia.” He could hear the smile. “Didn’t realize we were on a first-name basis now.”

Jess saw his change in expression and raised an eyebrow questioningly. Flynn mouthed _Keynes_ and Jess jumped on the line, starting to trace the call.

“Where the hell do you have her,” Flynn demanded.

“I don’t have her anywhere,” Keynes replied. “Tell Jessica thank you, by the way. It was so boring inside that apartment.”

Flynn gave Jess a questioning look. What the hell did that mean? Jess shook her head, indicating they’d talk later.

“This place is much nicer, I have to say,” Keynes went on.

“We got your message,” Flynn said, cutting him off. “How do you like it, with Emma pulling your strings now? Feel like a puppet yet?”

“You won’t turn us against each other so easily,” Keynes replied smoothly.

“Whatever you say,” Flynn said, leaning a hand against the desk as Jess continued to trace the call. “Seems to me like she’s the one who’s dictating how this plan goes now. Stealing your show, a little bit. Even deciding who your victims are. I don’t know, maybe you like that, maybe you’re too lazy to do it on your own anymore.”

“Maybe I’m just trying to see what it’s like for you,” Keynes said, an edge in his voice. “Being on a team. Although I have to say, your teammate is pretty useless.”

Jess made a choked noise and Flynn looked over at her.

“He’s at your apartment,” Jess whispered. “He’s inside the apartment.”

“…I’ve been in here for twenty minutes now and Detective Logan is _still _dead asleep.”

Jess dropped the call and dashed into the office to grab Denise.

* * *

Flynn drove so recklessly that he was pretty sure he was beating Wyatt for speeding laws he’d blown past. Jess was beside him, white-knuckled, Rufus in the other car. Calling Wyatt’s cell had led to no answer.

“He can take care of himself,” Jess said in a low voice as they whipped around the corner and Flynn slammed on the brakes, throwing the car into park.

“You know better than anyone that’s not the case,” he snapped, his voice razor thin and just as sharp. “Wyatt taking care of himself just creates a bigger fucking mess.”

He didn’t bother with the elevator—it was too slow. He just ran up the stairs, Jess and Rufus on his heels, thundering until their footsteps echoed through the entire stairwell from top to bottom, making them sound like an army.

The front door to the apartment was locked, as it should’ve been, and Flynn wrestled with getting the key inside so he didn’t have to deal with explaining to his landlord why his front door was busted in the next morning. As he opened the door, Rufus and Jess flanked him, all of them with their guns in the air.

“Wyatt!” Flynn yelled, not caring about subtlety. If Keynes was here and had Wyatt, he wanted their presence known. Keynes would know they were coming, anyway. “Wyatt!”

Please, God, _please_—

“Flynn?” Wyatt half yawned, half called, stumbling out of the bedroom. He was wearing boxers and a slightly too-large t-shirt, his hair all mussed and one side of his face red from being pressed into the pillow.

Flynn holstered his gun at once while Jess stepped back out into the hallway to see if Keynes was out there, and Rufus went into the other bedroom.

“What’s going on?” Wyatt asked, looking around. “What—”

Flynn strode across the room, relief, flooding him, and yanked Wyatt into his arms, hugging him tightly. Wyatt stumbled, then hugged him back, albeit still confused. Flynn wrapped his arms around him even more tightly, one hand at the back of Wyatt’s hair, stroking, his other arm around Wyatt’s lower back. Wyatt’s hands dug into Flynn’s shoulder blades, his face tucking into the side of Wyatt’s neck. Flynn murmured in Croatian, glad Wyatt couldn’t understand, not even fully aware of what he was saying, or why he was soothing Wyatt when it was obvious which one of them was the frightened one, but just needing to get it out, somehow.

“Jesus, Garcia,” Wyatt murmured. His breath was warm against Flynn’s throat, his lips just short of brushing the skin. “What’s wrong? What happened? Is Lucy—”

“No update on Lucy.” Flynn pulled back and took Wyatt’s face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together. “Keynes called, he was here, in the apartment. He was watching you sleep. We raced over here…”

Wyatt went pale, then flushed. “He fucking what!?” he whispered ferociously.

“He was here, he could’ve hurt you…” English failed him again and he pulled Wyatt in once more, surprised at how easily Wyatt let him do that, just falling pliant into Flynn and letting Flynn grasp him as tightly as Flynn wanted.

_I can’t lose you. _He couldn’t, no more than he could lose Lucy. He wanted to tell him, he wanted to say it, _volim te, I love you, I need you, trebam te_, and maybe now was the time. Maybe he should just stop hiding how he felt and to hell with the consequences, because he was so sick of hiding it, so sick of holding back the terrible love that he felt, and Lucy was still taken, and he’d nearly lost Wyatt, and he couldn’t let that happen without them knowing.

“I’m okay,” Wyatt murmured softly. “I’m okay, he was just trying to taunt you, I’m okay.”

He fit so well, letting Flynn hold him like this, and he curled in a little bit closer when Flynn turned his head and dared to press his mouth to Wyatt’s temple. Wyatt let out a shaky sigh, and Flynn felt his eyes burning behind his closed eyelids, loved so much he ached, glad Wyatt was safe, wanting Lucy safe in his arms just as much.

“Nothing here,” Rufus said, entering from the other room, and Flynn tried not to glare at Rufus as Wyatt pulled away. Of all the goddamn _timing_, of all the fucking moments…

Rufus was nonplussed by whatever frustration he saw in Flynn’s gaze. “Anything that seems unusual or out of place to you guys?” he asked.

Wyatt didn’t pull away completely, his hands sliding down from the back of Flynn’s shoulders to Flynn’s biceps, and Flynn couldn’t quite bring himself to fully let go, either, his hands falling to Wyatt’s hips. “I didn’t notice anything until Flynn started yelling for me, and nothing seems out of place to me.”

Jess stormed back in, holstering her gun. “No sign of him.” She walked over and hugged Wyatt, finally severing the touch between him and Flynn, her arms firmly around Wyatt’s shoulders. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I didn’t even know anything was wrong.” Wyatt looked a bit terrified at that. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Jess stepped away. “I… might’ve aggravated him.”

“How,” Flynn said, at the same moment that Rufus said, “What!?”

Jess sighed. “Look, I just—I wanted to make him pay, make him hurt, and I wanted to scare him. So I went to his apartment and I… roughed him up a bit. Amy stopped me before it could—before I could do something permanent. He got away, he ran, and that’s why he came here. It was as much to get at me as at Flynn.”

“I doubt this was a last-minute decision,” Flynn pointed out as Rufus spluttered something about the ethical beliefs of his team members. “Getting in and out of here with no sign of forced entry… this took time to prepare for, he planned this, or something like this, before you got to him.”

“It was still stupid,” Jess replied. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m going to go and report this to Denise. Wyatt, you might want to come back with us.”

“No shit,” Wyatt muttered. “I’ll just go get dressed.”

The two of them split. Rufus walked up to Flynn. “Hey. Listen. I just wanted to say I’m… I’m sorry.”

Flynn looked at him. “What are you talking about? You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

Rufus shook his head. “Yeah, I do. I let Keynes get the drop on me that first time, back at the motel with Wyatt All of this could’ve ended a year ago if I’d just been a bit faster.”

Flynn understood the feeling, and yeah, he’d be lying if he thought that there wasn’t a part of him that wished that had been how it had all gone down. Of course he wanted this to have all never happened. Of course he wanted all this to be over. But he also understood that people like this—that Keynes’ actions since that night—were not because of anything a good person trying their best did or did not do.

“Like I said,” Flynn told him, “you’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

Rufus looked surprised, but then offered him a small, slightly bewildered but grateful smile. “Thanks, man.”

Flynn clapped him on the shoulder and Wyatt exited the room, now dressed. “Shall we?”

Flynn nodded. “Yeah. I think I’ve got an idea.”

* * *

Flynn’s idea was that they go and pay a visit to Marcus Gates first thing in the morning when the prison visiting hours were open.

“When Keynes called,” Flynn explained, “I tried to keep him talking by suggesting that Emma was controlling him and that he was getting lazy. But that’s not quite true. Keynes has had an accomplice before, but it was a reluctant one. One that he controlled. Marcus Gates.”

Wyatt had to agree that Flynn had a point in that Gates would have no love for Keynes, the man who’d used his dying foster brother as blackmail to get Gates to do what he wanted. Even though Gates enjoyed being in prison, got to rule the coop there, it didn’t mean he had probably liked the blackmail, or even known about it in advance.

But would Gates actually help them? That part, Wyatt wasn’t so sure about.

When they got back to the precinct, Wyatt made Flynn take a nap on the break room couch while Amy took Jess home, Jiya dragged Rufus out, and Mason had breakfast delivered for when everyone got back. Wyatt stayed up with Denise, the two of them silently going over the video, over the paperwork, over everything, just in case there was something they missed.

“I’m having Internal Affairs look into the lab team that ran the DNA,” Denise told him. “If Emma bribed or threatened someone, we’ll find out.”

Wyatt trusted Denise with things like this. She was good at paperwork, good at using the system, good at finding out those who abused it.

“I can’t stop thinking,” he admitted. “Every hour that goes by, every minute, it’s more likely… she’s not going to make it.”

Denise nodded. “I know. But that’s where Emma’s psychosis is her enemy. She wants to drag this out and make a show of it. If Lucy’s come to harm, we’ll know about it. And in the meantime Emma’s too busy preparing for whatever her next big move will be. If she would just… shoot Lucy, yes, we’d have no chance. But she won’t. She wants this to be a spectacle. That gives us time to find and catch her.”

Wyatt agreed, but it didn’t stave off the sick feeling in his stomach, didn’t make him necessarily feel any better. He was still worried as shit.

Flynn was dead asleep on the couch when he went in to wake him up. He looked so worn out, Wyatt hated to wake him up. There were circles under his eyes, and his hair was flopping down messily into his face, a five o’clock shadow on his cheeks, his body heavy and still except for his chest rising and falling.

He’d held Wyatt, earlier. Held him and murmured things in Croatian that Wyatt didn’t understand, his tone desperate and warm and fuck, it had been everything Wyatt had ever wanted to hear. He’d wanted to crawl inside Flynn’s voice and stay there. Flynn had held him and shaken like he wasn’t ever going to let go, and Wyatt hadn’t wanted him to.

Wyatt could’ve even sworn that Flynn kissed his temple. If Rufus hadn’t interrupted—if they’d stayed alone—would Flynn have…?

No. Flynn was an affectionate person with those he loved, very tactile, and he’d thought that Wyatt was in danger, possibly dead. Of course he’d flipped out. Of course he’d been touchy and physically reassuring. Wyatt couldn’t let himself think it meant anything. If he did, he’d go insane.

In any case, there was no use analyzing it or talking about it. Not now. Not until they got Lucy back safe. And they would, they _would_ get her back. He couldn’t consider any other option.

He shook Flynn on the shoulder. “Hey. Garcia. Time to get up.”

Flynn’s eyes opened slow, and he grumbled something unintelligible, reaching up to lay his hand over Wyatt’s. “Kay. One minute.”

Wyatt nodded, stepping back, his hand sliding out from underneath Flynn’s. “I’ll make you coffee.”

It was almost, but not quite, like how it had been before Lucy, when it had been just the two of them. The difference was the ache of loss, of knowing there was someone missing from their dynamic. They needed her back—the third point in the triangle, the final bit of balance.

Flynn downed his coffee—Wyatt was already so jacked up with caffeine that if he had another cup he was probably going to have some kind of seizure—and they grabbed the breakfast Mason had kindly provided and set off right as the others were returning to have at it again.

“Try the breakfast burritos,” Wyatt told Rufus, around a mouthful of said burrito. “They’re insane.”

“You just exude animal sexuality,” Jess said dryly. “It’s a wonder I stopped wanting to sleep with you.”

Flynn dragged Wyatt off before Wyatt could object to that, calling over his shoulder, “It’s because he wouldn’t let you top, Jess, we’ve been over this.”

Jess’s wild cackle and Rufus’s half annoyed, half resigned objection were the last things Wyatt heard before the elevator closed on them.

Flynn’s brief moment of humor was a short-lived one. He was silent for the drive up to the state prison that Marcus Gates called home, and Wyatt couldn’t help but remember the last time they’d made a trip to a prison—and how their witness had been murdered by their suspect, and all the mess that had followed.

Lockwood hadn’t surfaced since his last attempt on Flynn’s life. Whoever his employer was, that person was also in the wind. Why hadn’t they tried to kill Flynn again? What had changed? It was only a matter of time until they struck again, Wyatt knew it, and in the meantime it was a horrible waiting game.

Flynn pulled up in front of the prison, gave their credentials and got them inside.

Marcus Gates was waiting.

There was no one else in the visiting area, which made sense seeing as it was still pretty early in the morning and Flynn had requested as much privacy as possible given the situation. Wyatt eyed the man that they’d once thought was the Triple Killer. Marcus Gates looked the part, tall, imposing, scruffy, with long hair and a cool, composed, ‘fuck you’ attitude.

“Never thought I’d see any of you again,” he noted as Flynn and Wyatt approached. “Want me to get you anything? I know a guy.”

“I’m sure you do,” Flynn said, his tone sharp and warning. He sat down across from Gates. “We’re here to talk to you about Keynes.”

Gates flushed a little at that and looked away. “I’m not talking about him.”

“What, because you’re scared of him? You, the big bad guy who runs this place?” Flynn nodded towards the guards. “We know how it really works in here, Gates. And I’m not judging. It’s a shit situation, a shit prison, a shit industrial complex, you gotta do what you can.”

“He’s a bit of an anarchist,” Wyatt explained.

“Socialist,” Flynn countered.

“He’s political.”

“Could we not do this right now?”

“I’m just explaining—you’re the one emailing me petitions to sign—”

Flynn waved his hand at Wyatt dismissively and focused back in on Gates, who looked faintly amused. “The point is, you told us you agreed to Keynes’ deal because it would put you back in prison. Back where you were king. But I can change all that. Make it pretty miserable for you in here.”

“If you think that I’m going to rat on Keynes, you’re an idiot, and I didn’t take you for one,” Gates replied. “My foster brother’s still out there. Remember him? The guy who nearly died? Keynes knows who he is and where he is. He can go after him any time he wants if he thinks I betrayed him.”

“All you have to do is let us know if Keynes let anything slip while you were sharing a cell,” Flynn said, trying to keep his tone even. “Anything that he might’ve used as a hideout, anywhere he’d feel safe.”

“Give me one good reason why I should help you.”

“I thought I already told you,” Flynn snapped. “I’ll make your life a living hell if you don’t. I’m not here to play around, Gates.”

“Neither am I, detective, so get off my back,” Gates said, leaning forward, his handcuffs jangling. “You’ve got people, so’ve I. I’m not going to risk anything happening to my brother.”

He stood up. “Keynes should’ve been arrested twice now. You failed. You really think I can trust you’ll get him this time? That I won’t pay a price for this?”

He was walking away. He was _walking away_, he was leaving, and with him would go their last chance of finding Lucy and saving her. Wyatt’s chest felt so tight and panicky, it reminded him almost of when his dad would come after him, feeling young, small, helpless, trying to scramble to escape a relentless and ruthless force.

“Please,” he burst out. “Gates, he’s got our partner. He’s got Lucy.”

Gates paused and looked back. “That’s the writer that works with you.”

“Yes.” Wyatt nodded. “She’s—you know what he does to people, he’s got her and we have no leads, please. If it was your brother—you’d do anything. You did do anything, you paired yourself up with a serial killer. I’m begging you.” He had no shame, not when it came to getting Lucy back. “Please, anything—we’ll make sure it doesn’t get traced back to you. We can’t let him hurt her.”

Gates stared at him for a moment, and Wyatt’s stomach did a painful, sick swoop, terrified that he’d failed.

Then Gates walked back over and sat down. “Keynes didn’t talk about much. Being his cell mate, it was… pretty scary, and I don’t scare easily. He’s so fucking unhinged, I never knew when I’d wake up and find him smothering me. I’m bigger and stronger than he is, sure. But he was wily. A snake. And he had this… _urge _to kill in a way that I haven’t seen in most people.

“But he liked to talk. Liked the sound of his own voice. I think it’s a part of just how those types are, they think they’re so much better than the rest of us. A kind of god or something. Usually he was just spouting some grand philosophy that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He’d talk about things like the impact of history after World War I—one time he painted this big weird timeline map thing on the wall of our cell and the guards got so pissed at him for it.” Gates shook his head.

“But he did tell me about… this place he’d go. He didn’t say much about his home life growing up. I figured it was shit. People say more by their silences, sometimes. But he had this one friend in middle school or maybe high school, I’m not sure, and the guy’s family was loaded. They had this big house upstate that they would go to in the summer and they took him a few times. I guess it was one of the few places where he was happy.”

Wyatt slumped forward a bit in relief as Flynn leaned in. “Any idea what the family’s name was?”

* * *

Lucy woke up slowly, groggily, the same as last time.

Unlike last time, she wasn’t slumped against a wall in the middle of a random parking lot, and there was no Emma cooing at her, no Amy whimpering through her gag.

_Amy._

Lucy squeezed her eyes shut. No. _No._

“Ah, you’re awake again.”

Lucy forced her eyes open, forced herself to breathe normally. Part of her felt numb. Like this all couldn’t possibly be real, like it was all just some horrible nightmare. Any moment now she’d wake up on the couch surrounded by notebooks and journals and her laptop. Or she’d wake up in her bed, spread out, a bit chilled from the night. Or warm in between Wyatt and Flynn, their bodies curled around her, their deep, even breathing filling her ears.

_Wake up. Wake up. Wake up._

She blinked, turning her head. It felt heavy. Her whole body felt heavy and a bit tingly, like static on old televisions. When she tried to move, she couldn’t quite manage it.

“The drugs should still be wearing off,” Emma said. “How do you feel?”

She sounded like a doctor talking to a patient who’d just gone through an operation, and for a moment Lucy was seized with a terrible fear that she _had _been through an operation, that Emma had done something to her.

Her vision clearing and the fog starting to leave her head, she looked down. Everything seemed to be as it should—ten fingers, ten toes, no marks of incisions, no scarring, nothing. She was, however, strapped down. Her legs and torso were pretty much immobile, but her hands she could just reach around to grasp one of the support beams-slash-hand holds on the underside of the… metal gurney? Yes, that seemed to be what she was strapped to.

“If I take out your gag,” Emma asked, typing away at a computer, “will you scream? I hope not. Nobody can hear you and it’ll just be tedious for me.”

Lucy had thought the dry cotton feeling in her mouth and the difficulty breathing was just the drugs, but now she focused and found that it was a gag, and she had to try and keep herself from hyperventilating as panic seized her chest.

It wasn’t the car, it wasn’t that, but it was still being trapped, still unable to move, and she swallowed hard a few times to try and keep the panic down, tried to keep it manageable.

_Figure out your space, _she told herself. _Where are you?_

She had put Kate Drummond in all manner of crazy situations, and she’d gotten her out of them, too. Kate Drummond kept her head. Lucy would too.

Okay, focus, where was she?

Emma was sitting on a wheeled stool in front of a desk of various computers and monitors. It looked like the sort of thing that had been set up long in advance, not something that had been thrown together at the last minute. Off to the side was another gurney, and a few rolling tables with various medical tools on them. All around them were thick sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling, and off to the side, in between two of the sheets, Lucy could just glimpse a closed door.

So, they were probably in a warehouse of some kind, one that Emma had used to set up as a kind of medical space. This was probably where she’d created the Jess lookalike, Lucy reasoned. Now she was going to use it to do… something to Lucy.

Lucy was sure it wasn’t going to be all that pleasant.

Digital faces were moving around on the computer screen, rather like computer animation, and Lucy watched as Emma’s fingers flew across the keyboard, making calculations. “There.” Emma stood up, then walked over. “Are you going to be good?”

Lucy nodded. Like fucking hell she was going to be good, but she wasn’t going to scream the moment the gag came off. Emma was a lot of things but she wasn’t quite dumb enough to hold Lucy in a place where Lucy’s screaming could be easily heard.

“There, that wasn’t so hard.” Emma smiled as she set the gag aside. Lucy had to swallow down the urge to bite off her fingers. “You’re used to doing as you’re told though, right? Your mother had you well trained.”

Lucy had her own opinions on her mother, not all of which were flattering, but she’d be damned if she’d let Emma make those kinds of statements. “Are you actually planning something? Or are you just going to keep making quips that only you think are amusing.”

Her hand slipped down, her fingers searching until she found the screw that held the handle to the gurney. If she could unscrew it enough, she could then pick at her strap and work it off, freeing her hand.

“Oh, yes.” Emma smiled. She seemed much more calmer than when she and Lucy had last squared off—more in control. “You’ve made it rather impossible for me to continue as I am. I knew changing my name, even with it all being legal, would only be a temporary measure. So I’ve been practicing on all those lovely volunteers.”

She turned and pressed a few buttons on the computer. “I’m going to give myself a new face.”

An animation started up, obviously one done for Lucy’s benefit, showing Emma’s face, and then another face being superimposed onto it—Lucy’s face.

Lucy felt her stomach heave and worried she’d throw up over herself.

“I think you’ll do very nicely,” Emma told her.

* * *

The house that had formerly been owned by the Hughes family had passed to a few different owners in the meantime, and was now, technically, not owned by anyone.

Watching through binoculars, Wyatt had a different opinion.

The area around the house had become overgrown, and it was far enough away from any neighbors that it was easy for someone to squat there so long as they were careful.

“Do you think they have Lucy there?” Wyatt asked.

“Someone’s there,” Flynn replied, setting down his binoculars. “Either it’s Lucy, or it’s someone who will give us answers.”

Someone they would force to give them answers. Wyatt was well aware of that. Flynn was dangerously close to the edge of his rope.

Denise had wanted them to go with backup, but Flynn had argued that would tip off Keynes and Emma, so they had to be more careful than that. Rufus and Jess were a bit up the road with a long-range radio so that Wyatt and Flynn could call him for help by pressing an emergency button on their own radios, one that would send an automatic SOS beep to Rufus and Jess. Denise was at the local police station with a full team for Rufus and Jess to call in if it got even hairier than that.

“I’ll go in,” Wyatt said, setting his own binoculars down.

“Wyatt…”

“You’ll shoot him on sight at this point, Flynn. Let me go. Besides.” Wyatt tipped his head towards the rifle in the backseat of their car. “You’re the better sniper.”

Flynn gave him a half-exasperated, half-fond look. “When did _you _become the one who wasn’t raging all the time?”

“Since I quit drinking and started going to therapy,” Wyatt replied.

If he could’ve reached out and yanked the words back into his mouth, he would’ve.

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “You’re in therapy?”

“Um. Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “After you got shot.” That was… full of a whole lot of things he knew they should talk about, but he still wasn’t quite sure how, at least not without admitting how he felt about Flynn. He looked down at the ground, scuffing his feet.

“Me too,” Flynn said.

Wyatt’s head shot up. “What?”

Flynn nodded. “I needed it. I’ve got a lot that I needed to… deal with, even before the near-death experience, and I thought I was okay and handling it all well but obviously I wasn’t, so. Here we are.” He paused. “Lucy hasn’t said anything… outright, but I think she’s been seeing someone too.”

“We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?” Wyatt observed. “Once we get her back.”

Flynn nodded.

Wyatt grabbed his handgun. “Okay. See you on the other side.”

To his surprise, Flynn grabbed him by the back of the shoulder as he tried to walk away, turning him and holding him tightly. “Be careful. Don’t do something heroic.”

“You mean stupid?”

“Tomayto, tomahto, at least where you’re concerned.” Flynn pulled away, bumping their foreheads together briefly as he did it, and then released Wyatt.

Wyatt saluted and then turned and began to move quietly through the trees.

This house had clearly once been grand, fancy, but had fallen into disrepair in the last few years. It wasn’t really at abandoned haunted house levels, more like annoying money pit, but it did have that ‘a serial killer could live here’ vibe going nice and strong.

All was silent and dark inside as he crept up to the house, peering in the windows. Someone was definitely living here. There appeared to be food in the cupboards, a plate in the sink, and a laptop computer on the table.

Wyatt elected to go through the cracked-open window that led into the dark and empty living room. It was riskier in the sense that he might cause a racket, but he didn’t trust Keynes to not have put up some kind of booby trap. This looked like a safehouse that he and Emma had been prepared to use, even if Keynes must’ve only arrived here last night—and if Emma was keeping Lucy here, then she would’ve had a couple days to set up traps.

He softly, carefully pushed the window up and wiggled in, swinging his legs over and landing softly on the dusty floor inside. It was dark and shadowy in here. There was electricity, clearly, since the laptop was plugged in on the kitchen table and there was a fridge that seemed to be running, but there weren’t any lights set up in the house. There was just the late morning light filtering in from the dirty, grimy windows.

Wyatt drew his gun, moving carefully, testing the integrity of each floorboard before he put his weight on it. Old houses groaned and creaked all the time, but a floorboard creaking was a rather distinctive sound and Wyatt couldn’t take any chances.

As he moved through the house, he kept his ears alert for any noise—especially of someone struggling or trying to call for help—and his eyes peeled for signs of life. There was another room, some kind of dining room, that had a mattress and rumpled blankets, so he assumed Keynes was sleeping there. The dust on the staircase upstairs was undisturbed, no footprints, so nobody was up there.

But the door that led down to the basement was open, and there were fresh footprints in the dust.

He nudged the door a little farther open and moved downwards into the dark, squinting, keeping his breathing even so that it wouldn’t sound out loud and harsh in the silence of the house. As the basement came into view, he saw that it was lit up, and seemed to have more signs of life.

Was Lucy down there?

Wyatt reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the basement, looking around. There was a table with a couple of computers on it, all of them showing different angles of a single scene. A woman was lying on a gurney or table of some kind, while another woman was standing, moving around her.

He moved closer, his heart thudding in his throat. That was—he knew that woman, he recognized her—Lucy. _Lucy_.

She wasn’t here, she was somewhere else, and that was Emma with her.

Wyatt fumbled for his radio to tell Flynn—and felt painful, burning, floating energy stabbed into his back, working through him, making his hands clench hard around his gun and the radio, his jaw clenching, the world blurring, pain, his insides dancing with—electricity, fuck, electricity, he was being tasered—

He hit the floor and yup, call it ref, K.O.

* * *

Lucy’s fingers were raw, slick with blood as she slowly worked the screw down, the metal cutting into her skin. She couldn’t let it go down too far, because then it would slide off and onto the floor, making a noise and alerting Emma. That image, Emma’s face with Lucy’s over it, was still on the computer screen, haunting her, sickening her.

“Usually I just use implants and the like to make a person’s face look like someone else’s,” Emma explained, checking her medical tools. “But you’re going to be special. We’re going to graft your skin right onto mine.”

“Are you trying to win the Serial Killer Olympics?” Lucy asked. “Did you see _Silence of the Lambs _and think, y’know what, I can do better?”

“I am better,” Emma replied.

“You’re better than Keynes,” Lucy pointed out, carefully working her strap up to see if she could slide it through now. Damn, not quite there yet. Almost. She went back to working at the screw. “You masterminded this whole thing, not him. Yeah, he’s clever, but you’ve really been one step ahead of us this whole time.”

“One step? Oh, Lucy, please, I’ve been several paces ahead.” Emma turned and smiled indulgingly at her. “And yes, it was my plan. Keynes’ anger at you was useful. I knew he had faked his death, I found him, and I’m using him.”

“You can’t keep him around forever.”

“Oh, no, of course not. He’ll get boring, the way all people do. But he’s useful. He’s keeping Wyatt and Flynn occupied, after all.” Emma paused. “I wish I could be there to see their faces when they find out what I’m doing to you. Not that I hate them particularly, but they are fun to play with.”

Lucy pushed the strap up again. So close… “Why did you kill Amy?” she asked, trying to keep Emma talking. “She was nothing to you, she never hurt you. It was meaningless.”

Emma walked over, cupping Lucy’s cheek, and Lucy wanted to sink her teeth into Emma’s face and rip her to pieces. “Isn’t it obvious? I did it to hurt you.”

Hatred burned in her chest, and she didn’t look away from Emma’s gaze, but she kept working on the strap.

* * *

Slowly regaining control over his muscles after he’d just been tasered was far from the most fun experience Wyatt had ever had. He’d been tasered before, all right, in the academy because they wanted you to know what it felt like so that you didn’t just go tasering people willy-nilly (as if that kind of thing mattered to the asshole cops who would taser anyone who looked at them wrong) but the instructors who had tasered him sure hadn’t jacked it up all the way like that or kept it going for that long.

He felt oddly numb, but also like he was floating, but also really fucking sensitive, all at the same time. All of his muscles went from clenched and tight to wet noodle levels of relaxed and then back to clenched again, and by the time it all started to even out and the world was no longer spinning and blurry, Keynes had hauled him up into a chair.

At least he hadn’t pissed himself. Score one point for dignity.

“A taser?” he asked, his chest heaving and seizing up, like he could only breathe through spasm. “What, couldn’t… take me down… yourself? Properly?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Keynes asked, securing and tightening the ropes around Wyatt’s wrists against the arms of the chair. “Just going at it with our fists, _mano-a-mano_?” He stood up and Wyatt saw that his gun and radio were now on the table next to the computers, which were still showing Lucy on the table.

Emma appeared to be preparing things on a tray, shiny, sharp looking things, and Wyatt’s pulse spiked.

“But that would defeat the whole purpose here.” Keynes moved to stand in front of him, leaning back against the table, his arms folded, smirking. “It’s a pity that Flynn isn’t here too, but I’ll find a way to make sure he gets to watch both of you die.”

“If you’re going to do that Bioware thing where you make him choose between Lucy or me,” Wyatt said, “it’s not the Sophie’s choice that you think it is. He’s going to choose Lucy.”

Keynes looked extraordinarily amused by this. “Either you’re lying to me, badly, or you’re telling the truth and you’re a bigger idiot than I thought you were.”

Wyatt tested the hold on the ropes. Dammit, they were snug. Keynes knew what he was doing, was the guy a fucking Boy Scout or something? “I have no clue what you’re talking about, asshole. Now where’s Lucy, where is that feed coming from?”

“Oh my God.” Keynes looked delighted. “Have you really not figured it out? Oh Detective Logan. You haven’t solved the Case of the Brooding Partner yet?” He spread his arms wide. “Flynn’s in love with you. You should have heard him when he realized I was watching you sleep.”

Wyatt fervently shoved down the hope that tried to bubble up in his chest. Keynes was just messing with him. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He was just the guy who’d helped Flynn when he was in a bad place, he was just Lorena’s brother, he was just a sad sack that Flynn kept around because he felt sorry for him. He couldn’t let himself hope it was true.

“You can cut the bullshit,” he said, his mouth able to move a little more easily now as his muscles relaxed more and remembered what it was like to function normally. “I know what this is all about. You’re pissed that I figured you out the first time, and so you want to lord over me how much smarter you are. Flynn’s your big nemesis, your Alex Cross, your chosen adversary, I get it, and you’re okay with him figuring you out a bit but you didn’t see me coming and you’re mad that some backwoods hick psychoanalyzed your ass.”

“Oh, please.” Keynes shook his head. “You’re welcome to think that you know me, but really, you’re just exposing yourself. Go ahead. Tell me what you think you know about me.”

He wanted to play this game? Fine. Wyatt could play this game. He had the time.

“You’re scared you won’t ever have love, that you won’t ever deserve love,” Wyatt said, and he knew he was revealing shit about himself, too, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if he was like Keynes, or Keynes was like him. What mattered was what they chose to do with the feelings inside of them, and Wyatt chose to try and rise above those traits. To be better than the fear, the anger, the selfishness. “You’re scared that because your mom left you, and Ruth abused you, that nobody will ever love you because there’s something in you that’s fundamentally unlovable. So you decided that instead of love, you were going to have power. It’s the next best thing, right?”

He shrugged as Keynes stared at him, a careful mask to hide the emotions that Wyatt was sure were competing for dominance inside of him, just underneath the surface. “You get power over other people, people that represent what you’re scared of—your mothers.”

“Ruth was not my mother,” Keynes spat, his body shaking and rigid.

Wyatt shrugged. “Whatever, man. She scares you. Just like your mom scares you, because what if they’re right? And you are unlovable? So you kill them over and over, and over, and you have that power and you feel good, for that one second—but then it goes away again.”

He tried something similar, with Jess, terrified of losing her and proving himself the shitbag his dad had made him out to be, a useless shitbag just like his old man, and he’d emotionally strangled Jess until she had to slam a door in his face (figuratively, but sometimes literally). He had killed their relationship.

“Rufus and Mason? They’re two friends of mine, and Mason, he’s into theatre, and he says a lot of bullshit stuff, but one time he and Rufus were talking and you know what he said?” Wyatt leaned in as best he could while tied to the chair. “He said that when you’re playing a character, you have to figure out what motivates them. Hate? Love? Fear? And he realized that hate comes from fear, and fear comes from love—the fear of losing something that you love. So you hate, because everyone hates being afraid, and feeling weak because of the fear, and with hate, you feel proactive. You feel strong.” Wyatt paused. “Theatre makes great therapy, apparently, by the way. So you’re afraid, because you don’t have love, and you want love, and you feel like shit for being scared, so you hate instead. But you’re really nothing but a sad, scared boy who is worried nobody will ever love him and doesn’t know how to handle it.”

Keynes applauded slowly, sarcastically. “Bravo. All those sessions on the couch paying off. You did it! You’re no longer the messed up, abusive piece of shit that you used to be! Congratulations! You’re _fixed_!”

His snark could quite hide the fury in his eyes, the lurking fear, and Wyatt smirked at him. Yeah, he was a sorry son of a bitch, but so was Keynes. Take your damn medicine.

Interestingly, at the time, Mason and Rufus had been talking about racism, but Wyatt felt it applied pretty well to asshole men killing women, too.

“Yeah, I’m all fixed,” he shot back. “Hip hip hooray. Now where the fuck is Lucy?”

He could tell that he could probably figure it out on the computers, if he could get a hold of them, but not while he was fucking tied up…

“Prepare to get used to disappointment,” Keynes said.

Wyatt only saw it because he was looking for it—the telltale flicker of a light, a mirror reflecting, glancing momentarily off the reflective surface of the computer. For a moment it shot him back to seeing the glint of the scope at the graveyard, of the horror of realization as he dove for Flynn, but then he mentally shook himself and focused back on the present, on Keynes.

“Funny,” he noted, “I could say the same to you.”

Keynes, obviously still thinking he was in charge of the situation, smirked. “Oh? And why’s that?”

Wyatt smiled, and he let it go slow, took his time. “Because Flynn’s about to take the shot.”

Denise had officially given the okay on that. They could shoot to kill. And while Wyatt had gone in to engage at close range, Flynn had been getting ready, setting up the shot through the basement window, the one they’d seen Keynes moving around in through the binoculars earlier.

Keynes had about two seconds where Wyatt saw his comment register, saw Keynes look surprised, saw him have the realization—and then the glass in the window shattered and there was the faint whistle of the bullet, the soft _thump _as it hit Keynes in the head.

Wyatt snapped his eyes closed, his head jerking away, his breath rattling out of his chest. He could feel a few warm drops of blood falling onto his face, and for a second he thought he might heave. He’d used to think, even up until recently, that he was weak for disliking gore, disliking blood, flinching when someone got shot, but after Flynn was hit, after he started talking to his therapist, he understood that it wasn’t weakness, that it was all right.

He cracked his eyes open when the silence stretched on, his pounding, racing heart the only noise in the room.

Keynes was lying on his side, slumped over, blood on the corner of the table and splattered across concrete that made up the floor of the basement. Wyatt realized, vaguely as if from a distance, that he was hyperventilating.

Footsteps thumped on the steps, and Wyatt tried to calm his breathing down. “Flynn?” he said, or tried to say, but his throat was tight and his mouth was dry, and all that came out was a noise like a strangled frog.

“Wyatt!” Flynn landed hard on the bottom, handgun out, saw that Keynes wasn’t moving—as if Keynes was a vampire who was going to somehow get up despite being shot in the goddamn head—and tucked his gun away to rush over to Wyatt. “It was hard to see, did he hurt you?”

“Tasered the fuck out of me, but otherwise, I’m good,” Wyatt said, holding still so Flynn could undo the ropes.

Flynn flicked out a pocketknife and started just sawing through them once he got annoyed with trying to untie them. “Sorry you had to see that.”

“I knew it was coming.” Wyatt swallowed. “Did you… could you hear anything?”

“The radio was off,” Flynn replied. “I could only see you through the window with the scope. Why? What did he say? Did he get in your head?”

_Maybe_. “No. I just kind of… Yeah. He didn’t tell me where Lucy was.” Flynn got off the last of the rope and helped Wyatt to stand up. Wyatt rubbed at his wrists, wincing a little at the raw skin.

“He didn’t have to.” Flynn stepped around Keynes and began typing on the computers. “This is a live feed.” His voice was tight. “We can figure out where it’s coming from. Call Rufus, get him over here. And Denise.”

“On it.” Wyatt grabbed his radio. Flynn was fully concentrated on Lucy, on the computer, and Wyatt swallowed the disappointment that bubbled up in his gut. Keynes had just been messing with him. Flynn was in love with Lucy.

Just Lucy.

* * *

Emma had started to pace a couple of minutes ago. Lucy kept working on her strap, trying not to let her worry show. “What are you going to do once you look like me?” she asked.

_What are you going to do after you cut my face off and put it onto yours._

She was going to be awake for this. Awake and in pain. Emma hadn’t said as much, but Lucy had seen no evidence of anesthesia, or gas, or pills—anything that would numb the pain or put her under.

“He should’ve called by now,” Emma muttered.

Lucy swallowed. Something had gone wrong. She prayed it was that Wyatt and Flynn had gotten to Keynes. “It’s Keynes. You’re really depending on him?”

“He does as I tell him,” Emma said, her voice quiet but sharp. “He’s easily led if you know how.”

Lucy made herself take deep, steadying breaths. An angry Emma was a dangerous Emma, a tiger cornered, and Lucy knew first-hand how bad it was to deal with a cornered tiger. She almost had the strap free, almost…

“They must’ve gotten to him,” Emma went on, talking more to herself than to Lucy now. “He’s such an idiot, they must’ve… it was perfectly set up.” She looked over at Lucy, who made herself lie still. “Flynn was going to go to Gates and find out about the summer house. He’d think he was so clever, and he’d go with Wyatt, and we’d have them. And Flynn would watch the whole thing. That was what Keynes wanted, that was his price, Flynn had to watch you.”

Lucy felt like vomiting and nearly choked on her own spit. Despite lying down, she felt lightheaded. Flynn would’ve had to _watch_…

“But now…” Emma shook her head, as if clearing it, and looked over at her tray of medical supplies. Lucy almost had the strap off, just a little more…

Emma paused, then stalked towards her. “I’m afraid it’s time, Lucy.”

So close, so close, so close…

Emma grabbed the scalpel and brought it towards Lucy’s face.

Lucy’s hand came free and she shot it up, grabbing Emma’s wrist.

Emma’s eyes went wide, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. Lucy tightened her grip, anger and pure adrenaline coursing through her.

“Not. This. Time,” she grit out.

She twisted Emma’s wrist in a quick and violent movement until Emma was yanked forward, forced to drop the scalpel, and Lucy’s elbow came up, jamming into Emma’s face. The elbow was one of the hardest, strongest points in the body, she remembered that from her self-defense training. Lucy thrust forward with it, smashing Emma’s face, then twisted her arm the other way, sending Emma to the floor.

She had only seconds until Emma was back up. Lucy yanked her other hand free and grabbed the scalpel, sitting up just as Emma got to her feet and lunged at her. Lucy punched her, hard, knuckles up so that her index finger was on top, throwing her hips into it as much as she could while strapped down. Emma reeled a little and Lucy struck her again, then slashed at her with the scalpel, cutting her cheek.

Emma screamed in fury and Lucy took the chance to undo her feet, wiggling, trying to fend Emma off at the same time as Emma clawed for her, and the two of them sent the gurney crashing down to the floor. Lucy got her arm up just in time to keep from banging her head on the floor and crawled backwards, her legs pulsing with pain from the gurney landing on them, scalpel still clutched tightly in her hand.

“You little worm,” Emma hissed, her eyes blazing like she wasn’t even human, like she was a creature of unholy fire just trying to pass for mortal. “You _stole_ my life!”

“I didn’t steal shit!” Lucy screamed. “I earned my life, my mom or no.” She stumbled to her feet, her entire body shaking with adrenaline and fury. “And you killed my sister!”

She shifted her grip on the scalpel, _ice pick grip_, Lola had called it in class, and she threw herself at Emma, screaming, stabbing downward towards the juncture between her neck and shoulder.

* * *

Despite Wyatt’s protests that really, it wasn’t that bad, Denise was benching him since he’d been tasered. Jess obviously was benched, since Emma had killed two Amy lookalikes as well as one who looked like Jess—Denise didn’t know about Jess’s rogue actions and he and Rufus had privately agreed not to tell on her—so it was just him and Rufus leading the charge while Denise went through the rear of the building.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Flynn noted as they checked their weapons, “if you’re going to try and hold me back, you’re going to get an elbow to the face.”

“Trust me, the last thing I want you to do is hold back,” Rufus announced.

Flynn looked over at Rufus.

Rufus nodded. “Flynn it up, Flynn.”

* * *

Emma did not go down easy, clawing at Lucy’s face, yanking at her hair, punching, trying to grab the medical tray and yanking on it, sending tools raining down on them as she tried to get a weapon, her hands grasping for Lucy’s throat.

Lucy didn’t care. Her self-defense classes were kicking in, instinct keeping her alive, which was a good thing because she didn’t give two shits about subduing Emma and getting away the way that she should have.

Amy was dead. Amy was _dead_. Emma had killed her sister. She was going to make Flynn _watch_. She’d been going to steal Lucy’s entire identity, her face, her life.

Lucy wanted her to bleed.

She stabbed again, again, screaming, warm and wet liquid hitting her all over, soaking her shirt and staining her skin. Over and over, _you killed her, you killed her, you killed Amy, _screaming and screaming, all of the anger at her mother, the anger at herself, the anger at all of it that had been building for two years, no, a lifetime, spilling out and projecting itself onto the perfect target.

Emma’s hands stopped grasping, slipping from Lucy’s throat. Her body went still except for the occasional jerk. She stopped hissing and screaming.

It took another moment for Lucy to realize what that meant.

* * *

Flynn and Rufus’s footsteps echoed down the hallway, the two of them back to back, checking each room as they came to it. This building was only half-finished, construction paused as the funding dried out, and there was tarp and plastic sheeting everywhere, hiding areas and making it easy to miss someone, or for someone else to sneak up on you.

He was going to kill her when he found her. At the very least, he was going to rough her up, make her scared of him like she’d never been scared of anyone or anything. He understood how Jess had felt and why she’d done it, that desire to make the person hurting the ones you love feel at least some measure of the pain and fear that they’d inflicted on others.

They got up to the sixth floor, and Flynn heard a scream.

Lucy’s scream.

“Lucy!” The sound was ripped out of his throat and he tore down the hallway. “Lucy!”

A door, there was a door in the way—he fired, not even bothering trying to pick the lock or shove it open. It swung open and he burst through—

“_Flynn_.”

Lucy stood in the middle of the room, blood on her hands, on her face from a cut on her temple, a scalpel in her hand… and the dead body of Emma Whitmore at her feet.

Her face crumpled and her knees gave out.

Flynn rushed forward, catching her. She dropped the scalpel and clung to him, sobbing. “Flynn, I can’t, I can’t, Flynn—”

He cradled her, pressing his forehead to hers. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.” Christ, he was never letting her go if he could help it. “I’ve got you.”

Lucy kept crying. “They killed her, she killed her, she took Amy… she took her…”

“She didn’t.” Flynn tried to wipe the blood off Lucy’s face. “_Moja draga_, she didn’t, Amy’s okay. Wyatt’s with her. Amy’s alive.”

Rufus stumbled in behind them—Flynn could hear his feet—and obviously saw Emma if the _oh shit_ he let out was anything to go by.

Flynn kept holding Lucy, who was pressing herself against him like she wanted to crawl inside.

He wouldn’t have minded if she had.

* * *

Mason sat with Amy, gently rubbing her back. Jess was dealing with the paperwork now that Keynes was dead, and Jiya was performing the autopsy. Wyatt and Jess had come back to the precinct about an hour ago, announcing what had happened—Mason could still see Wyatt restlessly cleaning up the murder board, pacing, rearranging his desk, and doing other such busywork through the glass window that allowed him to see the bullpen from the break room.

The most disturbing thing they’d been told was that Lucy thought Amy was dead.

“I know this will be hard to hear,” Christopher had told them, her voice gentle but unyielding. “But there was another Amy lookalike. She was the one who took Lucy. Whether she was bribed or coerced, we don’t know. Perhaps she was disturbed herself and didn’t care what happened to Lucy or was happy to do it. But she was killed in front of Lucy, and Lucy was made to believe it was the real Amy.”

Mason didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know what to do with any of this. He could handle Cahill and Rittenhouse, somewhat. They were an evil he understood. Fueled by money, coldhearted, they ordered executions and crimes like they were ordering brunch. They simply had lost the ability to understand how any other human life could have value besides their own. But they were lazy about it. None of them had the stomach to kill themselves, and they didn’t take pleasure in it, exactly. It was just business.

Emma Whitmore and Nicholas Keynes were an entirely different breed. They were the Macbeths, the Iago, the ones who did bad deeds and killed because they liked it, enjoyed it, relished it. Mason didn’t understand that at all. How to console Amy, or provide council, when these were the kind of people they were up against?

He could try and stem the tide of Rittenhouse. But he couldn’t do anything against the likes of Whitmore and Keynes.

“Did you finish your breakfast?” he asked, still rubbing Amy’s back.

Amy nodded. “I feel sick.”

“They’ll have her, my dear, don’t you worry. Jess said that they know where she is now. Soon enough…”

The elevator dinged open for the fifth time, and Wyatt, like the previous four times, dropped whatever it was he was holding and jerked towards it like a dog that sensed the mailman.

But this time, it wasn’t another beat cop, or a delivery man. It was Flynn, looking weary, Rufus behind him, and tucked securely under Flynn’s arm, shaking and bloody but alive…

Amy leapt to her feet. “Lucy!”

Lucy’s head jerked up, and her eyes widened in disbelief. Mason saw her mouth her sister’s name, and then she broke away from Flynn, running on wobbly legs like a baby deer as Amy shot out of the break room, sprinting, the two of them crashing together in the middle of the bullpen, tripping, slipping, falling to the floor, still holding on.

“I’m here,” Amy promised. Lucy was stroking her hair, kissing her forehead, squeezing her muscles as if making sure that Amy was real. “I’m here, she didn’t hurt me, I’ve been safe this whole time.”

Mason got up and walked out, nodding at Flynn, who looked like he’d done ten rounds with Muhammad Ali. Wyatt hurried over, skidded to a halt, made a wild hand movement like he wanted to reach for Lucy and realized that he probably shouldn’t, then course-corrected and moved over to Flynn instead.

Flynn pulled Wyatt into his side, his eyes going back to Lucy. Mason knelt down, putting a hand on each of the women’s backs. “Why don’t we go back to my place. Have a quiet evening. It’s all right.”

Lucy listed into him, still clutching Amy, and nodded against his shoulder. Mason looked up at the men. “I’ll bring her home safe later.”

“Take all the time you need,” Flynn said. “She needs her sister.”

_But you need her, _Mason thought. He didn’t know the details of what had gone on, but he did know that Whitmore and Keynes had taken Lucy not only to hurt her on Whitmore’s part, but to hurt Flynn—and to a lesser degree, Wyatt—for Keynes’ part.

Well. Lucy was the one currently crying and petting Amy like she’d never stop, so Lucy was the first priority. Mason gently helped to haul the two women to their feet. “Let’s go. It’s all right, I’ve got you my dears. Off we go.”

They had a long night ahead of them, but hopefully, at last, it was going to be a night of healing instead of one of fear.

* * *

Flynn went right home to the apartment, but Wyatt couldn’t bring himself to follow. He couldn’t get himself to be with Flynn in a quiet place with no distractions, not with Keynes’ words ringing in his ears.

Instead, he did the stupidest thing he could possibly do—he went to a bar.

He hadn’t had more than a single beer in one sitting since Lorena and Iris had died, which had turned him into a total fuckin’ lightweight. Okay, sure, maybe he wasn’t as bad as people who’d never drank before, seeing as he’d once inhaled alcohol like he was a fish and it was the ocean, but it didn’t take a whole lot to get him plastered and he was pretty sure he’d once been able to handle more than this.

The bartender could tell, in the way of all service workers, that Wyatt was a customer who didn’t want to be chatted up that night, so she just quietly kept the drinks coming until it was obvious that Wyatt wasn’t about to walk out of here under his own power if she gave him anymore.

Wyatt idly drew circles in the wood of the bar with the condensation from his drinks. He loved Flynn. He loved Lucy. Lucy loved Flynn. Flynn loved Lucy. Lucy also loved him, at least a little bit, and she was okay with him loving Flynn. Keynes said Flynn loved Wyatt.

It all made his head spin. Was it true? Could Flynn love him? Had Keynes just been tricking him? One last sick game before he killed Wyatt, a way to set Wyatt and Flynn at odds in Wyatt’s last moments as Keynes made Flynn watch Wyatt die. A way to make Wyatt die in the most humiliating way possible.

Ugh, he felt sick. He couldn’t call Flynn. Flynn would be disappointed in him. Lucy wasn’t home yet and he couldn’t ask anything of her after the last couple days she’d endured. Jess had put up with his drunk dialing enough over the years, there was no way in Hell he was calling her right now.

Hmm…

Rufus picked up on the third ring. “Man, this better be good. I was in the middle of a dream where I got to meet Tesla.”

“You got to meet a car?”

“The person, you heathen, the… never mind.” Rufus sighed. “What’s up?” In the background, Wyatt could hear Jiya grumbling.

“I… I’m sorry.” Damn it, he hadn’t wanted to cry. “Can you come pick me up?”

“What? Yeah, of course, buddy, what’s wrong?” Rufus’s tone changed as he heard the upset in Wyatt’s voice. Rufus was so good, he was so _good _to them, they didn’t deserve Rufus.

Wyatt decided to tell him that. “You’re so good, Rufus, you’re a good person. You’re better than all of us. None of us deserve you ‘cept Jiya.”

“Thank you,” Rufus replied. “Where are you?”

“Um…” Wyatt flagged down the bartender and held out his phone. “Can you tell him where I am?”

“He’s at The Lifeboat,” the bartender replied.

Oh, yeah, Mason’s bar. They all would come here for drinks. Fuck, he was out of it, he hadn’t even remembered. He took the phone back. “Yeah, y’know, where everyone was gonna go when we caught the Triple Killer. But we thought it was Gates and it wasn’t. And Jiya kissed you. And I got my ass kicked. And you were knocked out.”

“Yes, Wyatt, I seem to recall,” Rufus said dryly. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Try not to annoy anyone.”

“All I do is annoy people,” Wyatt said. “How am I supposed to avoid that?”

Rufus just hung up.

By the time Rufus got there, Wyatt had sunk fully into despair and just had his head pressed to the top of the bar. He was going to be best friends with his toilet tomorrow, and there was no reason that Flynn wouldn’t know what he’d done, and Flynn was going to hate him.

“Okay, come on.” Rufus got his hands under Wyatt’s armpits and hauled him up. “And no, Flynn’s not going to hate you. I’m pretty sure you could set his favorite turtleneck on fire and Flynn would forgive you.”

Wyatt draped himself over Rufus, mumbling thankful platitudes, and let Rufus lead him to the waiting car. “I can’t go home,” he noted as he was settled into the front passenger seat.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to,” Rufus replied. “I’m not taking you home.”

Wyatt pressed his head to the cool glass of the car window after Rufus shut the door on him, and then nearly threw up when the car was started and it rumbled to life. Vibrations were not his friend right now, got it.

“Where are we going then?” he asked about ten minutes later when the rest of what Rufus had said caught up with him.

“A place Mason talked to me about,” Rufus said. “He used to go here a lot. He had a relapse about a month ago. It had something to do with Flynn being shot. I know he doesn’t show it well all the time but he does care about all of you. He was too ashamed to go back for a bit but I convinced him, and the group was really forgiving and supportive.”

Wyatt knew that normally these words would all probably make sense to him, but he didn’t understand them right now.

“There’s a 24-hour diner near my place. We’ll go there first, sober you up. They’ve got a morning meeting on Saturdays so, good timing on the bender.”

At some point, he fell asleep, still wondering what the hell Rufus meant.

When he woke up, it was to Rufus shaking him, and then pulling him out of the car. “C’mon, coffee and food,” Rufus announced.

The woman at the diner obviously knew Rufus, because she smiled and gave him a booth without questioning him about the guy standing next to him who looked like death walking. Rufus ordered for them both, and when he requested bacon, sausage, eggs, and pancakes for Wyatt, Wyatt held up a hand. “Dude, I’m going to be so hungover, I can’t eat that.”

“You’re not hungover,” Rufus replied. “You’re still drunk. You’ll be fine.”

The food did smell good, and the waitress kept the coffee pouring, refilling his cup the moment he emptied it. It was just basic black coffee with some milk poured into it, nothing fancy, and he missed his hazelnut cream but it sufficed. It was kind of nice, actually, just basic coffee, although he didn’t want it all the time.

Rufus didn’t eat as much, just having an omelet and some bacon. He eyed Wyatt like he’d do something drastic if Wyatt didn’t eat all of his food, so Wyatt tucked in, only realizing how hungry he was once he started eating.

The more he ate and drank, the more he woke up, and he could feel the alcohol slowly draining away, working itself through his system. Rufus kept making him drink water, to the point where the waitress just left a pitcher of it on the table, and he had to pee so damn much he felt like the staff probably wondered if he had some kind of bladder issue. But it worked—by the time the sun was rising, he was feeling like a human being again.

“I owe you,” he mentioned, polishing off the last of his sausage. Rufus nodded at the waitress, who brought over a small bowl of fruit for him to end with. Wyatt nodded his thanks at her.

“Nah,” Rufus replied. “Friends don’t keep track of those kinds of things.”

“I’m going to cover your entire desk in Chocodiles.”

“Well, if you insist…” Rufus joked. He leaned forward onto his elbows. “Seriously, Wyatt. You don’t owe me anything. But you are going to go to the meeting that’s in an hour.”

“Meeting?” He’d forgotten about that.

“I know that you had a pretty good handle on it,” Rufus explained, keeping his voice low, “but you need to go to a meeting. If your response to being upset is to go out and get drunk. And just because you never talk about it doesn’t mean it’s not what you are.”

For some reason, that made him think about being bi, about being in love with Lucy and Flynn. _Just because you never talk about it…_

Even though he already knew the answer, he had to ask. “What kind of meeting is it?”

“AA,” Rufus said without hesitation. “And before you ask, Mason doesn’t go to Saturday mornings. He likes to sleep in. So you’re good.”

_My name is Wyatt Logan, and I’m an alcoholic. Just like my dad, who cares if he’s resting in peace._

“Okay,” Wyatt said, the words sticking in his throat and having to be yanked out. “Okay.”

Rufus nodded, and Wyatt got the impression that Rufus was proud of him.

* * *

She’d ended up staying the night at Mason’s that first night, curled up with Amy in his guest bedroom, just watching her sister sleep. Her dreams were hazy but terrifying, and she woke up three times in the night, clutching at her chest, feeling like she couldn’t breathe.

Everything seemed usual when she got to the precinct the next morning. Flynn and Wyatt were taking care of the paperwork, although Wyatt looked like a zombie and Flynn didn’t say a single word all day. Lucy herself didn’t feel much like talking. She’d become quieter as she’d worked with them, more settled in herself, needing less and less to put on a persona. But this was different.

She wanted to sleep with Amy again that night, to never leave, to make sure her baby sister was alive and safe. But they all had lives to lead. She couldn’t smother her. She had to heal.

An emergency meeting with her therapist was that afternoon, and that helped, a bit.

But then night came, and she couldn’t sleep.

Lucy emerged from her bedroom, wondering if anyone else was suffering as she was. Wyatt wasn’t out there, but Flynn was, quietly reading.

It took her a moment to realize he was reading one of her Kate Drummond books.

He looked up as she entered, blushing, and set the book down. “I… reread them, occasionally. When I can’t sleep and need some comfort.”

“I can’t sleep either.” She walked over and sat down next to him, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad my books can help.”

Flynn smiled softly at her, looking down at her. “Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?”

Lucy laughed quietly. “Y’know what, if you’re serious? Why not. It’ll help as much as anything else.”

Flynn suddenly looked nervous, then his expression softened again. “Seriously, Lucy. I used to do it for Iris, sometimes.”

If he said he cared about her as a daughter, Lucy was going to fling herself out the damn window.

“Do you have… did you have nightmares last night?” She wanted to reach out and finger his soft dark gray t-shirt, the ends of his black hair, thumb the stubble along his chin. “I can’t… last night every time I closed my eyes… I can’t quite believe that I killed someone.”

Flynn breathed carefully. She could feel it. “You weren’t even yourself then, Lucy. You were… you were in this mental break. You had snapped. I don’t think you or anyone could be blamed for what you did in that moment. And you thought she had killed your sister. She was going to literally take your face, Lucy, my God, what else were you supposed to do?”

“I still killed her,” Lucy whispered. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Flynn sighed. “You… you come to terms with it. Just like you come to terms with grief. At first it’ll be hard, and everything will remind of it, and it’ll be ever-present. But over time… it’ll get better.” He cracked a rueful smile. “Denise told me the same thing about… about my shooting, actually.”

Lucy wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she just nodded. Flynn shifted, and she realized he was starting to stand up. “I did have nightmares,” he rumbled quietly. “And I suspect I’ll have them for some time. It’s all right. It’s part of your mind’s way of purging the trauma.”

She nodded, accepting the hand that Flynn gave her to help her up.

“You can sleep with us again,” Flynn offered. “If you want.”

He held her hand a moment more, and she thought, absurdly, that he might kiss her knuckles, but then he dropped it and walked into his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Lucy stood there, unsure, terrified, torn. She wanted… but could she? It was a dangerous line to tread. Dangerous for her heart.

Then again—screw danger. She’d had plenty of it, and so far, none of it had killed her. And she’d probably do something stupid, like down a bottle of vodka, if she stayed alone in her room tonight, eyeing the shadows like they’d leap out at her.

She crossed the room and softly knocked on the door.

Flynn opened it, saw her, and huffed out a small breath, smiling. Lucy raised her eyebrows at him and pouted ever so slightly.

Flynn smiled a little wider, ducking his head down as he opened the door for her and she slid around the door frame to enter inside.

* * *

Flynn gently guided Lucy to bed, where she crawled in next to Wyatt. Wyatt, who hadn’t come home at all last night. Rufus had texted around two a.m. to say that Wyatt was with him for the night, sorry for the late notice, and Flynn had been grateful, but… it had been difficult, to say the least, to be alone last night. He hadn’t wanted to be alone with his thoughts, and he especially hadn’t wanted to be without Lucy and Wyatt. The urge to hold them was such an ache, only matched by the times he’d wanted to hold Lorena and Iris again.

Gradually, he had gotten used to not being able to do that with his girls. He didn’t want to have to learn how to do that with these two.

Lucy settled in the middle of the bed, and Flynn slid in beside her, gently pushing some of her hair back from her face. Lucy gave a little sigh and snuggled in more. Cautiously, scared of alarming her, Flynn draped his arm over her waist, his fingers catching on the hem of Wyatt’s shirt.

“You can wake me up if you get a nightmare,” he whispered.

Lucy blinked up at him. “Only if you promise to do the same.”

Flynn ruthlessly smothered his smile. “All right.”

Fortunately, neither of them had nightmares. Or, if Lucy did, she didn’t tell him about them.

He tried to keep a careful distance in the night, but when he woke up, it was with a mouth full of Lucy’s hair. She was curled in against him, and Wyatt had pressed up against her from the other side, his foot now in between Wyatt’s, his hand grasping Wyatt’s hip from across Lucy’s body.

Flynn never wanted to move again in his life.

The poem he had whispered to Wyatt the other night had been from a collection, one that Wyatt had read to Flynn a few times in dark moments. Wyatt was more of a bookworm than he wanted to let on—he liked pulp, hardboiled detective novels, and Ian Fleming, but also Vonnegut and _The Dresden Files _and Sturm und Drang, particularly Goethe. A particular line from one of the poems came to him now.

_It is a serious thing to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world._

He allowed himself to tighten his grip just a little, to breathe them in, and Wyatt’s eyes fluttered open.

Flynn nearly fell off the damn bed in shock. He had never seen Wyatt wake up so easily.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Wyatt whispered, softly enough that Flynn had to read his lips to be sure he heard him correctly.

“Actually slept better than I thought I would,” he replied. “You?”

“Off and on,” Wyatt admitted. “Couldn’t sleep deep enough to really dream.” He looked between them, at Lucy, who slept on undisturbed. “When did she come in?”

“Around midnight. I invited her.”

Wyatt looked back up at Flynn, and Flynn felt terribly, mortifyingly seen. “Garcia.” Wyatt looked mournful, somehow. “When are you going to tell her?”

Flynn swallowed. “I…”

“Please.” Wyatt closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Flynn remembered how he had begged Gates, pleaded with him to tell them about Keynes so they could save Lucy. “Don’t—don’t lie. Not to me. You love her.”

_Don’t lie. Not to me. _For some reason it sounded like the most painful, the rawest, the most revealing thing that Wyatt had ever said to him.

“I do,” Flynn whispered, at last leaking it out into the open. “I love her.”

“Tell her,” Wyatt said. His voice was even softer now but there was no mistaking his words. “She deserves to be happy, Garcia. So do you. Just… put us all out of our misery and tell her.”

Flynn had a thousand objections, but they were all hard to voice when he was so tired, and they’d just gone through Hell, and Lucy was snuggled in his arms—literally—and sleeping peacefully like there was nowhere else she’d rather be.

As if to drive the point home, and because he wouldn’t know subtlety if it defied it nature and hit him with a sack of bricks to the face, Wyatt looked pointedly down at Lucy and then back up at Flynn.

How much was it killing Wyatt to do this? Wyatt was in love with Lucy, too. How much was it hurting him to step aside and tell Flynn to be with her? Flynn wasn’t all that sure if Lucy loved him back or not, but she definitely had feelings for Wyatt. And he was stepping away. The Wyatt of five years ago, the Wyatt who had first come to New York City, couldn’t have done that.

He was proud of Wyatt for that. Proud, but also sad for him. But he didn’t know how to say that, not in a way that Wyatt would appreciate. Especially not when his own love for Wyatt still sat heavy in the back of his throat. So instead he just gave into Wyatt’s request.

“Fine,” Flynn whispered. “I’ll tell her.” Not right now. He’d have to do it right. But. Somehow.

“Seems odd, doesn’t it?” Wyatt asked. “After… we made it. And now we just… go on. They’re dead. And we go on.”

_Meanwhile the world goes on._

“Yes,” Flynn said. “We go on.” He flexed his hand around Wyatt’s hip. “We go on safe.”

This one nightmare, at least, was finally over.

“Flynn?” Wyatt whispered again.

“Mm?”

“I went to AA. That’s where I was yesterday. With Rufus. I… I wasn’t good. The first night. So he picked me up and he took care of me and he made me go.” Wyatt paused. “I think I might go every week.”

Flynn rubbed his thumb slowly back and forth along the skin just underneath Wyatt’s shirt hem. “I’m proud of you.” This, at least, he could say.

“I know you never… made me go.” Wyatt swallowed. His face was a little flushed now. “But I probably should have a long time ago. I’m used to… I always thought I could handle everything on my own. That… that was how it was supposed to be. That you were strong that way. That it was weak to… anyway. You know. So. Thank you. For putting up with me. For being patient.”

“It was never putting up with you,” Flynn replied. “And someday I hope you’ll realize that.”

Wyatt nodded, and closed his eyes, turning his face into his pillow. Flynn closed his eyes again as well. It was Sunday, they had the day off, they were safe, and it was still morning. He could sleep in a little while longer, breathing the both of them in, enjoying this before it all changed. Because telling Lucy would change things. Hopefully for the better in some ways. But it would change them. And what scared him the most was that he couldn’t predict how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to brassmama for coming up with Jess’s joke about how Wyatt looks like a lone gunman. She is truly hilarious and generously let me steal this line. And once again, I am quoting Mary Oliver poems.
> 
> The episode used for this chapter was Reckoning (7x15).


	13. Chapter 13

Jiya snuggled deeper into the bed, sighing in relief. She was actually getting to sleep in today. Not that most people would consider it sleeping in, since she did have to get up for work, but after that one week with Whitmore and Keynes, and then the follow up autopsies… it had been nuts.

Now, she was back to a regular damn work schedule, thank God.

She heard Rufus hum contentedly, and then his arm draped over her back, his mouth pressing against the back of her shoulder blade. He mumbled something that she roughly translated to _morning_, and Jiya smiled.

When she woke up again, it was to her alarm going off. She fumbled, found the alarm clock, and shut it off. She could hear the sound of Rufus getting up as well—sometimes they kept different hours, but when they were on the same shifts they liked to go into work and leave together.

_I want to do this for the rest of my life._

It was a slow, sleepy, sneaky thought, but once it was there, it settled in like a stray cat making a home. She wanted to do this, this simple waking up together, feeling Rufus’s warmth and weight in bed with her, for the rest of her life. She wanted to hear him getting up in the morning, she wanted to quickly feed each other breakfast, one of them making the toast while the other brewed the coffee, she wanted to go into work together, she wanted to fall asleep on the couch watching _Doctor Who _together.

“_Th’y’la_?” she murmured. It was a name she only used when they were alone. Partially because it was a weird nickname that made everyone look at them oddly, partially because Rufus had to keep their playful _Star Wars _vs. _Star Trek _rivalry going, and partially because… well, it was private. It was just for them.

“Hmm?” Rufus flopped onto the bed to join her, smiling. “You need to get up.”

“I know.” She reached up, running her fingers along the side of his face, cupping his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He kissed her forehead. “Now get up, lazy, it’s your turn to make the coffee!” He got up off the bed and bounced out into the living room.

Jiya sat up. “I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“I want a small wedding.”

Rufus poked his head back into the bedroom. “Small?”

Jiya nodded.

Rufus looked thoughtful, then nodded as well. “I’ll keep it in mind. You know my mom’ll try to turn it into a big production, though, just warning you.”

Jiya grinned at him, her chest loosening. “Consider me warned.”

Rufus went back into the kitchen, and Jiya brought her knees up, pressing her face into her legs, grinning.

* * *

Amy tiptoed as quietly as she could, the tray balanced between her hands. She gently bumped the door open with her hip—and then paused as she saw Jess sitting up in bed already.

“You were supposed to stay asleep!” she protested, bringing the tray into the room and setting it carefully on Jess’s lap.

“I smelled the bacon and woke up,” Jess replied, laughing.

Amy braced her hands on the bed and bent over, kissing her. “You’ve been so patient, I had to reward you.”

“You rewarded me thoroughly last night.”

“Mmm, but still.” Lucy had been staying over a lot. Amy could’ve gone over to hers, but that would’ve left Jess alone, and Jess insisted she preferred sleeping on the couch with others in the house then getting the bed to herself while being on her own. On the few occasions they slept over at Mason’s, Jess would stay over with Wyatt and Flynn. Wyatt and Flynn still had each other if Lucy wasn’t there.

Amy wanted to talk to Lucy about that whole… situation with the men, but this… the teasing, ribbing Lucy about ‘her boys’, trying to push her to say something about how she felt… it wasn’t fun anymore. After all that had happened, after their relationships and connections had all been used against them for some sick game, she didn’t want to talk to Lucy about talking to Wyatt and Flynn about dating them until she could talk about it seriously. And they all needed a bit of time before they dealt with any more seriousness. Lucy did, anyway.

As the days had gone on, though, they’d needed each other less, and were okay with going back to normal and not doing sleepovers like they were kids again and Amy was crawling into Lucy’s bed because she’d had a nightmare.

Jess had been very patient through the whole sister-bonding and healing process, and Amy believed in rewarding good behavior.

She settled in next to Jess, snagging a piece of bacon for herself. “Do you have to go in today?”

“Nope.” Jess popped the ‘p’. “I have a meeting later, non-work related, so we can be lazy. You working?”

“No, I have the next couple days off.” Amy grinned. “Looks like we’ve got nothing to do all day.”

“Mmm, and a big bed to do it in,” Jess noted, bumping their noses together. “Do you want to go for a walk or something today? Hit up a museum? Be boring adults on boring adult dates?”

“Ooh, we could go to IKEA,” Amy suggested. “Try out the beds, eat lunch in the café, pretend to be fancy, play with the stuffed animals.”

“I like it.” Jess laughed.

Amy settled in further and munched on the bacon. Excellent.

* * *

Denise dodged Mark’s backpack as her son swung it around and onto his shoulder. “Eat something!” she ordered, following her own advice and grabbing the omelet that Michelle passed her, digging in quickly.

Mark said something garbled, and she turned to see that he had shoved a bunch of fruit into his mouth. Denise sighed. “Please don’t choke.”

“Mom, I can’t find my purple folder!” Olivia yelled, banging down the stairs.

“Ah, chaos,” Denise observed, holding up the purple folder that she had found under the couch cushion last night when it had dug into Michelle’s back while Denise had been trying to kiss her.

“Aren’t you so glad you get to witness it again?” Michelle noted, laughing, kissing her on the cheek. “Okay, I’ll see you later, love you!”

“Love you!” Denise called. She kissed Mark on the temple and Olivia on the cheek, then grabbed her thermos of tea.

She was glad she got to witness this again and didn’t have to pull all-nighters. She was smiling as she walked out the door.

* * *

Mason sighed, putting his espresso cup in the sink. Lucy and Amy were doing better, no longer clinging out of fear that the other would be taken away. Rufus had been doing all right, stopping by to chat and preparing to figure out what he wanted to do with his life after quitting the force.

There was still the matter of… Cahill and the rest.

Perhaps… there were people that he could reach out to. Or rather one person. But could he? And what about Lucy? Didn’t she deserve to know?

He had spoken to Carol about it once or twice, after she had confessed the truth to him. He had kept her secret, as her friend, while she was alive. But now that Carol was gone, was it really right to keep it still? To meddle in a family matter while someone was alive, sure, but…

Mason’s phone rang, and he winced instinctively, only to see that it was Rufus. His muscles loosened, and he inhaled slowly.

He had to do something about this. Because if he didn’t, Rittenhouse would.

* * *

Lucy curled closer to the warmth, breathing in deeply. The part of her mind that was always criticizing her, the part that sounded like Mom, wondered what it said about her that she couldn’t really sleep alone after everything that had been going on. The rest of her didn’t care. She had bigger problems to worry about. Needing a cuddle buddy or two to help her sleep at night was so far down the list of priorities, it didn’t even really register.

A large hand, Flynn’s—she knew the difference between Flynn’s and Wyatt’s hands now—slid through her hair, gently working through the strands, and Lucy kept her breathing deep and even, her eyes closed, her body loose and heavy. If he realized she was awake, he’d stop.

She wasn’t sure what to do about this. Most nights, to start out with, she’d shared with Amy, terrified to let her sister out of her sight—and the feeling had been mutual. Then they had started to realize that they were okay, that nobody was going to snatch or hurt one of them, and Amy had gone back to sleeping at her apartment with Jess.

That had left Lucy… kind of in this odd in-between place. She tried to sleep in her own bed, but she would wake up in a sweat, feeling the straps around her body—or she’d be in the car again, hammering, only in the dark water she could see Emma’s face leering at her, mocking her.

So she would get up, and knock on Flynn and Wyatt’s door, and one of them would let her in.

But they weren’t… _talking _about it. She wanted to, but she was scared of upsetting the delicate balance. What if Flynn was just putting up with this because they were all so traumatized? What if Wyatt wasn’t in love with her and she’d just kind of been assuming it? What if…

They had to talk about it, she knew they had to talk about it, it was just… how, and when, and changing things, finally crossing the Rubicon and shifting things between them irrevocably. They bled for each other, and they didn’t talk about it. They nearly died for each other, and they never talked about it. They kissed, they danced, they lived together, and they never talked about it. Something had to give, and it scared her more than almost anything.

Flynn’s hand stilled in her hair, and she heard him sigh. Then he pulled away, and she felt the mattress shift and dip as he got up. Wyatt, at her back, shifted a little, and Lucy heard Flynn walk around and pull his trick of waking Wyatt up without Wyatt lashing out at them.

“I’m going to make coffee,” she heard Flynn murmur, and then he was walking out, the door closing softly behind him.

Lucy rolled over, stroking her fingers along Wyatt’s jaw. Wyatt hummed, cracking his eyes open. “I’m going to take a shower,” she whispered.

Wyatt nodded, closing his eyes again. It was a relief, to get up in the mornings without rushing, without snatching just a few hours where they could and then getting back at it again. Lucy didn’t begrudge him another few minutes of sleep.

_Do you love me? _She had never asked, never said it. There was just that kind of understanding.

Later, she told herself, getting up and hopping into the shower. Later, not first thing in the morning. Later, she’d figure it out.

* * *

Flynn was never going to fucking figure this out.

Wyatt leaned over his shoulder, looking at the various crossed-out lines in the notebook. “Jesus Christ, Flynn, you’re telling her you love her, you’re not writing the next Great American Novel, for fuck’s sake.”

Flynn elbowed him. “Don’t shit on Keats.”

“I’m not shitting on Keats, I’m shitting on your ten thousand drafts of this.” Wyatt read the letter quietly to himself, and Flynn tried not to blush. He was a grown man, for God’s sake, and he’d already been married once. Being a romantic, and specifically being romantic with someone, should not be making him feel like he was fourteen years old again.

“I’m trying to quote the letter she was reading,” Flynn explained, when Wyatt’s silence stretched on. “The other day when she was doing research.” He was personally a bit more of a Neruda fan but he wanted to remind Lucy of something they already had a bond over.

“I have been astonished,” Wyatt read quietly, “that Men could die Martyrs for religion. I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more. I could be martyr’d for my Religion. Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you. My Creed is Love – You have ravish’d me away by Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavored often ‘to reason against the reasons of my Love.’ I can do that no more – the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.”

Hearing Wyatt say all of that did quite a number on Flynn’s insides, even though Wyatt had made it quite clear that he didn’t want Flynn. He was pushing Flynn to confess to Lucy—and although Wyatt was obviously in love with her as well, it seemed he was trying to do right by Flynn, and do what he thought was best for Lucy, by having them be together.

On the one hand, Flynn was proud of Wyatt’s selflessness. On the other hand, he wanted to point out that he was happy to share Lucy, if she really did love him in return and if she wanted both of them. But both of those aside, it made him ache like a knife wound that Wyatt didn’t want _him_. That he could only have one, and not both. He burned for Lucy like a firestorm. He’d had a terrible crush on her from the first—or, well, all right, since from before he knew her personally, and then a couple of weeks after he first started knowing her, once the disappointment and surprise had morphed. But Wyatt—he’d been in love with Wyatt for years. First through the guilt of Wyatt being Lorena’s brother, then through the resignation of thinking Wyatt was straight, and now…

Now Wyatt was pushing Flynn and Lucy together, and Flynn just had to accept that Wyatt didn’t love him. But it made it hard to hear those words, spoken in that soft, rough voice, coming out of Wyatt’s mouth as they were practically pressed up against each other in the kitchen.

“What do you think?” he asked, as Wyatt continued to stare at the page. Wyatt’s expression was carefully neutral, which Wyatt rarely managed and which meant that he was probably struggling like mad to keep it that way.

Wyatt set the notebook down. “I think you should use your own words,” he said. “Nothing against Keats or any other writer but I think you do a pretty good job on your own.”

“It’d be easier in Croatian,” Flynn admitted.

“Then write it out in Croatian first and translate it.” Wyatt grabbed Flynn’s dirty dishes off the table and put them in the sink. “The more you think about this, the harder it’s going to be. Just say it.” He paused. “God, I sound like Sebastian the fucking crab.”

“What are you working on?” Lucy asked, still shaking out her hair from the shower.

Flynn’s right elbow jerked as his left hand scrambled to cover up the notebook, and his coffee got knocked over, spilling across the papers. “_Sranje_!”

“Oh no!” Lucy darted to help and Flynn nearly smacked her hands away, the papers getting scattered across the floor in the process, and he fervently, deeply wished for death.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Suspiciously still facing away from them, standing at the sink, Wyatt was having a coughing fit.

“It’s… really, don’t worry about it.” He smiled at her, reassuringly, and quickly scooped up all the ruined papers and dumped them in the trash before Lucy could read them. He’d just start over later.

Lucy gave him an odd look, then handed out her phone.

“What’s this?” Flynn asked, seeing the caller was Mason, of all people.

“Apparently Mason wants to talk to you,” Lucy said. “Something about how Rufus called him asking for help, quote, ‘procuring the finest ring in all the land immediately’, although I think Mason was exaggerating, and how this really isn’t his thing since he doesn’t do romance, but theoretically you managed yourself well enough the first time around?”

“It took him six months of Lorena hinting and she finally just asked him out herself,” Wyatt pointed out, the traitor. “And now I can see why,” he added in a mumble that only Flynn could hear.

“Denise would help me bury the body if I killed you,” Flynn noted, taking the phone from Lucy. “Mason, how can I help?”

Still doing dishes in the sink, Wyatt’s coughing fit continued.

* * *

Wyatt waited until Lucy had gone back into the bathroom to finish doing her hair and Flynn was pacing up and down in the bedroom giving Mason advice on how to give Rufus advice (which… what, why was his group of friends so damn weird) before he opened the trash.

Gingerly he took out the still wet pages and placed them on the cookie tray he’d put on top of the stove, then popped them into the oven he’d heated up on the lowest setting. Normally he’d use a hair dryer, but Lucy would want to know why he needed hers, and he wasn’t prepared to lie that well.

Fortunately Lucy wanted to constantly look like she had just stepped out of a vintage haute couture magazine, so she wasn’t going to be out of the bathroom anytime soon, and Flynn seemed to be reaching the third stage of grief with Mason on this whole romantic advice thing, so he had plenty of time. Once the papers were dry but before they could catch fire, Wyatt took them out and grabbed the scissors and the stapler.

If _somebody _wasn’t going to decide on the perfect draft of all his notes, Wyatt was just going to take care of it for the idiot.

* * *

Flynn got an immense sense of satisfaction out of getting to walk into the precinct with nothing so urgent that he had to run. The idea of just sitting down and dealing with paperwork had never before been so appealing.

Lucy, who was subconsciously trying to kill him in a dark, loose burgundy summer dress with tiny white polka dots scattered across it, her hair in an artfully constructed tumble of curls, was in the break room typing away because she had nothing to do at the precinct but refused to be cooped up alone in the house. Wyatt was currently bribing her with donuts to try and get her to not include some personal stuff regarding his James Bond crush in her second book in the series. Jess was in the interrogation room dealing with a repeat offender and trying to get the guy to plead guilty so that she could talk to the DA about getting him volunteer work and rehab instead of jail time.

And Rufus…

Rufus was plopping himself down in Wyatt’s chair right across from Flynn and looking nervous. “You talked to Connor, didn’t you?”

“I talk to Mason about a lot of things,” Flynn pointed out. “Usually about his questionable taste in musicals and how he’s wrong and Hamlet had a bad relationship with his father.”

“You two will go to the grave arguing over that one,” Rufus muttered. “I’m serious, man, you know what I’m referring to. He was giving me advice that sounded suspiciously like lived experience and Mason’s steadiest romantic relationship is with sushi. Jess and Wyatt can’t give that advice and I doubt he got up the courage to ask Denise, so.”

“What would you need his advice for?” Flynn asked, instead of answering Rufus’s question.

Rufus narrowed his eyes at him. “As if you don’t know.”

Flynn decided that switching tactics was the best strategic move in this situation. “You’re not the only one struggling with romantic possibilities, you know.”

From what Mason had said, Jiya had merely brought up the fact that she wanted a small wedding—it was starting the ongoing conversation of marriage, and the future, it didn’t mean that Rufus needed to start picking out a ring right that second, but Flynn doubted that was the kind of thing that it would reassure Rufus to hear.

“Oh?” Rufus’s curiosity was piqued, it was obvious from the way his eyes lit up and a smile started to spread across his face.

“I’m trying to tell Lucy…” Flynn fumbled. “…how I feel.”

“That’s rough, buddy,” Rufus said.

“Oh, like you had such an easy time of it.”

“It’s amazing how things work out when you just tell someone how you feel,” Rufus replied placidly. “Just take Jiya and…”

“Oh, hello, Rufus Carlin,” Jiya said, walking up. “My boyfriend. Whom I love very much.”

“Uh oh,” Rufus said.

Jiya held up a picture on her phone. “What have I said about eating chips in bed?”

Denise stuck her head out of her office. “Last I checked, this was a place of work, not a place of gossip.”

Flynn smirked at Jiya and Rufus. Rufus glared at him. “Wipe that smirk off your face, Casanova,” Rufus muttered.

Denise stuck her head out again, but this time it was with much more urgency. “Guys, suit up, that bomber’s hit another building.”

Well, shit.

* * *

“We tracked the man’s car,” Flynn explained as Lucy put on her _Writer _bulletproof vest and tied her hair up in a ponytail. “Intercepted the I.T. guy he had an appointment with today to fix his computer, the guy confirmed his identity. Nate Fosse.” He got out of the car. “You stay here while we go into the apartment.”

“Fosse’s nothing compared to the kind of people we’ve been up against lately,” Lucy pointed out.

“He’s still a criminal and still dangerous,” Flynn replied. “He’s killed three people already, I’m not taking chances.”

“So I should just wait in the car!? Like a puppy!? That’s Wyatt’s job!”

“Hey!” Wyatt protested.

Flynn smirked at Wyatt, then sobered up. “Just… fine, but only because you shouldn’t be alone. Stay close but stick behind me.”

“It’s stick close but stay…”

“Wyatt,” Flynn warned, and Wyatt promptly shut up.

Lucy got out of the car, and kept herself tucked in close behind the two of them as they made their way up the stairs with the rest of the team hot on their heels. Given that Nate Fosse had already killed so many, Flynn obviously felt knocking on the guy’s door was kind of overkill, but he did it anyway with an annoyed look on his face.

“Mr. Fosse,” he called.

From the other side of the door came an odd scraping noise, then a thud, then… “He’s climbing through the window!” Lucy blurted out as she realized.

Flynn’s eyes went wide. “You, you, and you, downstairs, around to the fire escape. The rest of you with me.” He then felt the door handle.

Huh. It was unlocked. Interesting.

Flynn looked a bit relieved that he didn’t have to kick the door down (a pity, Lucy thought, since she did so love to watch him do it) and led the charge inside.

Nate Fosse was already out the window and heading down the fire escape, so Wyatt took off after him with the rest of the team to box him in properly while Flynn searched through the apartment. Lucy stepped up into the kitchen. “This is a nice place for a guy who just got out of prison.”

Fosse had been imprisoned for six years on charges of arson. It had only been a matter of time—apparently he’d had a dangerous fascination with fire for years, and several misdemeanors for getting into fights in bars.

“Maybe he had stock options,” Flynn said, and Lucy wasn’t quite sure if he was joking or not. He looked over at her, his lips quirking upward, and Lucy smiled. Joking, then.

“Maybe he found a good side gig in prison,” she suggested. It wasn’t unheard of. The privatized prison system in the United States was outright barbaric, if you asked her, and it was as capitalist as the rest of the country. You had to pay for better accommodation, better supplies, even tampons if you were a woman. In some prisons you weren’t even allowed physical visits anymore, you had to pay for Skype calls with your family.

And if there was a way to pay for things, then there was a way to make money. Black markets thrived inside the prisons, tiny islands unto themselves with their own rules and own ways of getting ahead.

Something on the kitchen table gave her pause. The table was mostly cleared off, but sitting right in the middle, in obviously some kind of… pride of place, was an album, open to a page with a single card in the middle.

Lucy walked over to get a closer look. Was that… a baseball card? She wasn’t aware that Fosse was a collector. What was it doing just sitting out here? Had he been looking at it when they’d ambushed him?

* * *

Wyatt hopped down to the ground, Fosse just ahead of him, running for it. “Get on the ground!” he yelled. “Hands in the air!”

The other half of the team arrived at the end of the alley towards where Fosse had been running, cutting him off. Fosse stumbled to a halt, his head whipping back and forth like a terrified, plague-carrying rat, foaming at the mouth but realizing there was no escape.

Then out of his pocket, he pulled a small black device. He held it up in his hand as he got down on his knees.

Wyatt approached firmly, even as his heart started to race. What was that? “Drop that, hands behind your back.”

Fosse looked up at him with an angry, and yet smug, desperation. “You should’ve just left me alone,” he said.

Then he pressed a button on the black device, and Wyatt heard something beep—and realized what had happened.

* * *

Lucy tapped her fingers on the kitchen table. “Hey, Flynn, look at…”

“There’s a bomb!” Wyatt yelled, bursting into the apartment.

Flynn, over by the bedroom, whipped his head up. “What?”

“We caught Fosse but he had a detonator with him. There’s a bomb in here somewhere. I called Denise and she’s got the squad coming but we need to get out of here, now.”

Lucy turned and took a step—and felt something in the floor sink down. A click sounded, like something either springing free or snapping into place.

She froze. Her heart raced in her chest and sweat broke out on the back of her neck. “…Flynn?” Her voice was a whisper, although she didn’t mean for it to be.

Flynn and Wyatt turned, looking at her.

Lucy swallowed. “I… I think… I think I’m standing on it.”

* * *

Wyatt saw the absolute panic in Lucy’s eyes, and the way that Flynn went into an almost-crouch, like he was about to race across the room and tackle Lucy out the goddamn window to try and save her, and immediately stepped in between them. “Okay. Okay. Don’t move, Lucy. If it didn’t go off right away and you’re standing on it…”

“I felt it… it pressed down, like the floor sunk down.”

Wyatt glanced around. Well, that explained the construction equipment, like the saws and such, that were over in that corner of the living room. “That sounds like a pressure plate. Just stay still until the bomb squad comes, and they’ll find a way to… deactivate it.”

“Just stay still.” Lucy gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “Easy-peasy.”

Wyatt walked over—but not too close. “Yeah. So we’ll… we’ll distract you. It’ll be fine. Flynn? Maybe you should call Denise?”

Flynn looked for a moment like he would rebel—despite appreciating it when Wyatt offered support, he was also extremely stubborn and hated being coddled—but then he nodded and stepped out of the apartment.

Wyatt pulled up a chair. “Who puts a live bomb in their own apartment? Makes no sense.”

“Don’t look now, Wyatt,” Lucy replied, “but I don’t think Nate Fosse is the sanest of men.”

Wyatt grinned at her. “You don’t say?”

The bomb squad arrived and was quickly able to figure out that the bomb was in between the floor of this apartment and the ceiling of the apartment below it, which was—thankfully—currently unoccupied. That was probably why Fosse had chosen this one, Wyatt realized.

The leader of the bomb squad spray painted a careful square outline around Lucy, about five feet by five feet. “This is the plate, or at least where we think it is. You can’t shift your weight, and nobody can step in or out.”

“Could we… Indiana Jones it?” Wyatt asked.

The squad leader shook his head. “Just taking away the weight for even a moment… it’s too risky. This guy knew what he was doing. What we’re going to do is drill up through the ceiling, get access to the bomb, and dismantle it. In the meantime, you guys have your man in custody. Try and get him to give us the code to just shut it off. It’ll be easier on everyone and he doesn’t want to go to jail as a cop killer.”

“I’m not a cop,” Lucy said. She managed to indicate her vest, with the word _Writer _on it instead of _Police_. “I’m a consultant. I’m a writer.”

“Ah.” The squad leader looked a little thrown. “Well. He still won’t want to go down for this. See what your team at the precinct can do.”

Wyatt remembered Jess and winced. “They’ll do a lot, all right.”

Flynn walked back in. “Denise is getting to work on Fosse. She said we could stay here.”

Wyatt nodded. “We’ll let you guys do your thing,” he told the squad.

The bomb squad departed to head downstairs, and Flynn pulled up another chair, sitting just outside the spray-painted line. “And to think, my mom was always claiming I would be the one to blow up a kitchen someday,” Flynn mused.

“What are you talking about?” Lucy asked. “You’re the only one of us who can actually cook.”

“I can cook!” Wyatt protested.

“Technically,” Flynn replied, “yes.”

“Why do I get the feeling your poor mother had to endure a lot?” Lucy said to him, smiling.

“Because you know me,” Flynn replied easily. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, however.

Lucy’s expression wavered. “Did I… strike a nerve?”

Flynn glanced at Wyatt. Wyatt had… the story, or most of it, but given out in broken bits and pieces, jagged shards of glass that cut Flynn’s mouth as he’d spat them out. Now it was sea glass, rounded edges, opaque but no longer violent.

“My mother went through a lot,” Flynn admitted. He leaned forward on his knees, his forearms braced on them. “She was got pregnant right out of high school. Her mother already hated her husband and her father was long gone, and then… when the baby, when my brother, was only two, her husband died. It was some work-related accident at the factory where he worked. I doubt it was legal, the way they were running things. Not that they’re exactly all about worker safety nowadays.

“But my mother—she was bright. So smart, Lucy. She could’ve been a rocket scientist if she’d been born a little later or if… things had turned out differently. She got a job at NASA anyway, and was working her way up the ranks, backdooring it, when my brother…” Flynn hung his head for a second, then looked back up at Lucy.

Wyatt remembered finding out about this in the middle of an argument with Flynn. He’d felt so sick inside, so very awful, not just that he’d misjudged parts of Flynn by not knowing about this, but that he’d found out in the worst way possible, dragged out of Flynn while they were both angry and saying harsh things that neither of them really meant.

“He was allergic,” Flynn admitted at last, on an exhale. “To bee stings. My mother didn’t know. He was only eight.”

Wyatt wondered, if only Maria had been alive—she was possibly the only person in the world who could understand what Flynn lost when Lorena and Iris had been killed. He wondered, then, if Flynn missed his mother more than any other time. But of course, he didn’t have the courage to ask.

Lucy inhaled sharply, sadly. “Garcia…”

Flynn shrugged as if to say _what can you do_. “She was the strongest person I ever met. She just… it wasn’t that grief didn’t affect her but she could hold it, bear it, with this sort of… dignity that I haven’t seen anyone match. Including myself.” He gave a rueful smile.

“If she worked at NASA,” Lucy said slowly, “how did she end up… meeting your father? You were born in Croatia.”

“It wasn’t Croatia then,” Flynn replied, not unkindly, more in a mild tone like he was remembering a host of other things in connection to that. “My father was a… well she never did tell me but I know now he was a spy. The files are still all blacked out and locked down, but I know he was much more than just a diplomat. He had an assignment at NASA and met Maria—that was my mother—and after some time they began a…” Flynn winced. “It seems so old fashioned to say a courtship but that’s what it sounded like to me when Father would describe it.”

The fact that Flynn always said ‘father’ as the name for Asher told Wyatt volumes. Most kids who called their dad ‘father’ either had a distant relationship or thought their dad was an outright bastard, but not Flynn. It was more like… like Flynn just respected Asher so goddamn much he couldn’t think of calling him anything else. At least, not now that Asher was dead.

“He must’ve had his work cut out for him,” Lucy said, with a trace of knowledge in her voice that Wyatt could relate to more than just about anything, “trying to be with someone who’d lost so much.”

“He was the patient type. He understood her.” Flynn smiled fondly, and Wyatt wondered what memory Flynn was conjuring up in his mind. “And he was so affectionate. He was never afraid to show he loved her, or me. I called him Papa all the way up until I was twelve. I got teased by the other kids for it but I didn’t care.”

“Until you were twelve?” Lucy said, her tone gently teasing, and Wyatt winced.

Lucy saw it, and her smile fell.

“He died,” Flynn said quietly. “Disappeared, technically. He was off on a job—something short, the country was approaching war and he was trying to do his part, trying to make it all… less messy, trying to be fair to everyone, and he never came back.”

Wyatt couldn’t imagine what that had been like for Maria. Even more so since three years later…

“It’s why I signed up for the war. Three years early, like the stupid kid I was.” Flynn shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “I wanted to make him proud. Only made my mother sad. Every memory I had of her was sad, but this time I knew I’d caused it. I spent a lot of time trying to make it up to her.”

“I’m sure you succeeded,” Lucy said. Her face said, more clearly than words ever could have, that she would’ve given anything to be able to touch Flynn in that moment.

“She lived to see me marry Lorena, to see Iris born,” Flynn conceded. “That was good. I’m not sure if I’m glad she didn’t live to see… the rest, or not.”

Lucy looked as though she understood. “I’m not sure if I’m glad about my mother. I know her death is why I did all this, but I also wonder… what if I’d done all this while she was still alive? What if the murder had happened and I’d managed to work with you guys? Would I still be… would I be showing her that she couldn’t control me as much anymore? Would we maybe, even, have a better relationship?” She sighed. “Or maybe if my father just hadn’t died. He always made her better. Or so I thought. I don’t know.”

“How’d they meet?” Wyatt said, in a desperate attempt to get this train onto a more positive track, instead of having Lucy and Flynn wallow in their sad parental feelings.

“At Stanford,” Lucy said. She smiled wistfully. “Mom always said that it was love at first sight. She was on this special research project at the time, and she had to work on that and Dad had to go on this… thing he was doing with his professor as his assistant, and the whole time they were apart they wrote these letters, I still have them somewhere, they managed to survive the fire because I had them in the fireproof box in my office.” Lucy’s smile widened. “They’re the sappiest shit, Amy gagged when she read them. But the moment Dad came back to Stanford he proposed.

“They actually had to get married pretty quickly, because Mom was pregnant from the get-go, and then I was born premature anyway so it ended up not mattering as much.”

Wyatt frowned at that, something itching at the back of his mind. Something about Jess, and premature babies. No, about Lucy as a baby. About both of it?

“I’m glad you got to see that good part of your mom,” Flynn told her.

It swam to Wyatt’s mind now. After the fire, he and the others had helped Lucy to sort through what had survived, cleaning away the ash to get at important papers. More had survived than they’d initially feared, thanks to quick work on behalf of the fire department, and because the bomb had been in a concentrated area designed and positioned to take out Lucy’s bedroom specifically.

But the point was, he had sorted through some papers, including records from Lucy’s birth. If he was remembering correctly, Lucy had been born seven pounds, which was just a little under the average for a newborn—which he knew, because Jess had told him, told him after she’d confessed about the miscarriage. They’d had another talk about it, a longer one when Jess was calmer, and she’d spouted off all these facts at him like she’d been holding them in her chest for years. And maybe she had been.

“Mine was too early to be anything,” Jess had said. “And it wasn’t a premature birth, those are… different things. Apparently.” Her voice had held less bitterness than Wyatt had expected.

If Lucy was a premature baby, though… “Lucy, how premature were you?”

Lucy looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “Mom and Dad always joked they conceived me the night Dad first got back to Stanford. Apparently they had a… wild couple of nights. So I was born just under six months in. I never really thought about it, I didn’t really have any health problems.”

Wyatt stared at her, a horrible sensation sliding into place in his stomach. “Lucy, you… you couldn’t have… your documents said you weighed seven pounds when you were born. If you were born twelve weeks early and you were already seven pounds, you would’ve been fucking ginormous when you were born full-term. You should’ve been more like… four pounds.”

Flynn turned and gaped at him.

“What?” Lucy said, her voice a bit hoarse.

“He’s right,” Flynn said. “Iris was a preemie. She was three pounds, eight ounces, doctors thought for weeks she wouldn’t make it. We wouldn’t leave the hospital. Lorena still had nightmares after we brought her home.” He looked over at Lucy again. Lucy looked… stricken. “I mean… ah, it’s not impossible, of course, but it would be… very unusual. And you’re not…” Flynn eyed Lucy up and down and Wyatt realized he was taking in her height.

Right. Lucy was only five feet five inches. Not especially big. Sure, you could start out big and then not grow a lot after but…

Lucy looked down at herself, like she was suddenly taking in her height, her weight, her appearance, all in a way she’d never thought of before. Wyatt thought of the pictures he’d seen of Carol Preston, of her blonde hair and her almond shaped face, of her eyes, her nose, all of it the same as Amy Preston. None of it the same as Lucy.

“Oh my God,” Flynn whispered under his breath as Lucy looked up at them, staring like she’d been slapped.

“Did my mom have an affair?” she demanded.

* * *

Rufus stumbled more than walked into the morgue, where Jiya was writing up some reports. “Do you have a sec?”

Despite her exaggerated (but very real) frustration at him over eating chips in bed, Jiya set her papers aside immediately. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Rufus slid some papers over to her. “I… I’ve been digging into Lorena and Iris. And I’ve found stuff about Rittenhouse, about Cahill, and I had to do some computer hacking to do it and I covered my trail so you don’t have to be worried…”

“I’m so glad you told me not to be worried,” Jiya said, flipping through the papers, “otherwise I would definitely be worried that you broke the law and are possibly tripping the anti-hacking alarms on the servers of some very bad people who could get you arrested or y’know stabbed to death in an alley.”

“Look at the records,” Rufus said, ignoring her sarcasm. “You have to hand it to them, they keep very good records. Including what charities their members donate to for tax purposes.”

He knew the moment Jiya found it, because her eyebrows shot up. “It could be a coincidence.”

“That they did this with every single production for five years?”

Jiya worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “It looks like it was a while ago. The donations… he’s not listed for the last few years at all.”

“That’s Mason’s production company, Jiya. Rittenhouse members were all helping to fund his theatre productions, I can’t overlook that.”

“Who’s to say he knew?” Jiya replied, putting the papers down. “And it stopped a few years back.”

“So he wanted out, maybe, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t in it.” Rufus felt sick. “Jiya, we know what these people, what Cahill, is capable of. If he and Mason know each other, if Connor…” He swallowed. “If Connor’s lied to me, lied to Amy and Lucy…”

He realized he was feeling lightheaded and had to sit down. Jiya waited patiently as he pulled up a chair. “Rufus.” She took his hands. “If you’re worried about this, then the person you need to talk to is Mason.”

“He’ll want to know how I got this. These are all individual donation, from wealthy people, of course nobody’s going to notice… you have to find wealthy people to produce your plays all the time, that’s how it works.”

“I know, Rufus, I saw _Smash_.”

“…please do not remind me of that show’s existence.”

Jiya hummed a few verses from _I Never Met a Wolf (Who Didn’t Love to Howl)_. Rufus scowled at her, just to hide his smile. “Jiya.”

“Rufus.” She stopped humming and focused in on him. “So it looks like Mason accepted financial donations for funding his plays from Rittenhouse members. These members are pretty high society. He could have not known what they were really—who they really were. That is a possibility.”

“Mason’s not a stupid man.”

“No,” Jiya acknowledged. “He’s not. So that means he might know about Rittenhouse. That also doesn’t mean he knows about Lorena and Iris, and Cahill’s connection.”

“But what if…” Rufus’s entire body felt heavy. “What if he does know? What if he’s known this whole time and that was—that was why he befriended me? Did he see this… did he talk me into quitting to try and weaken Wyatt and Flynn? To try and keep them from figuring out who did it, to protect Rittenhouse?”

“You were already considering leaving the force, before Mason,” Jiya pointed out. “You’ve been hinting at this for a while. Just because you didn’t talk to us about it doesn’t mean some of us didn’t notice. It wasn’t all that big of a surprise when you told me. I don’t think Denise was surprised either, despite… how it came out.”

Right. Emma. Rufus still hated her for that, for airing all of their dirty laundry in that video.

“You know that leaving is the right thing to do for yourself.”

“That’s the thing, I didn’t know, until Mason. I was still so torn.” Rufus rubbed at his forehead. “My dad… you know I lost my dad.”

Jiya nodded. When Rufus was only twelve.

“He was shot by a cop,” Rufus admitted. “And… he had always told me, _be the change you want to see in the world_. So I thought, I should become a cop and change things. From the inside. Lead by example. Actually serve and fucking protect, the way we’re supposed to. Just because the institution started out racist, started out with slave catchers and mob enforcers—it doesn’t mean it had to stay that way. We _do _need a peacekeeping force, a justice system. And so I… I wanted to help be a part of that, so no other kid had to go through what I did.”

“And you’ve done so much good,” Jiya started, leaning towards him, but Rufus cut her off.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t think I’ve done enough, really. I can’t… be a part of this system anymore. But—but it felt like I was turning my back on my mission, on the steady job that supported my family, on all I had promised my dad.”

“And Mason helped you make a decision.”

Rufus nodded, feeling miserable, feeling torn up and twisted inside. Like a rag that had been wrung out, all the water, all the life, dripping away.

Jiya took his hands. “I think, from the bottom of my heart, that you would’ve come to this decision anyway. Because that’s the decision that feels right to you. The way you look when you talk about leaving… it’s like this weight’s been lifted off you. Now, I don’t know about… this. But I know that for all his faults—Connor cares. He cares about you. He cares about Amy and Lucy. He was in a panic when you and Jess were taken by Lockwood. He sat with Amy the entire time Lucy was kidnapped. He bought us all breakfast. There comes a point where you can’t fake that kind of thing. You just can’t.”

Rufus took deep breaths. “It just hurts,” he admitted. “It hurts to know that… that he lied.”

“He’s like a father to you,” Jiya guessed. Her eyes held no pity, only understanding. Jiya had lost a father, too, after all. But unlike Mason, who had always been warm and open in his regard for Rufus, Flynn wasn’t ready to acknowledge the bond between him and Jiya, the way he would look at her with this kind of parental softness, the way she would turn to him for guidance.

Rufus nodded.

“Talk to him,” Jiya advised. “None of this can be resolved until you do that. And you know it was—only a matter of time until you had to talk to someone about what you’re doing, looking into this on the side. It might as well be someone you can…”

Her voice trailed off before the final word, but Rufus knew what she’d been about to say, and why she’d stopped. After all, despite all of Jiya’s comfort, they really didn’t know if they could trust Mason anymore. Or if they ever had been able to.

Jiya gave a small sigh, then kissed him. “_Th’y’la_. It’ll work out.” She smiled crookedly. “I love you.”

He pressed their foreheads together. “I know.”

* * *

Denise rubbed at her temples. Lucy was standing on a bomb. Bomb squad was there, that was good. Flynn had promised her over the phone that he and Wyatt would distract Lucy, keep her entertained while the bomb squad worked. Also good.

But that still left her with three people on her team in danger of dying if something went wrong, and one criminal heading for lockup who they needed to crack.

Rufus and Jess were the best at the good-cop bad-cop routine. No prizes for guessing who played which role. She’d sic them on Fosse just as soon as the man’s lawyer was finished with him. She’d made sure of that—this was going to be a high-profile case, even before you counted the lives on the line (a famous writer and two police officers, the press was going to love that—she’d barely kept the details of the Whitmore-Keynes case away from them and she’d only managed that because both killers were dead, so no big public trial) and she wanted there to be no doubt that Fosse’s rights had been seen to.

Fosse’s lawyer knocked on the door, and Denise sighed. Then she straightened up and put on her most neutral of expressions. “Come in.”

She just hoped that Flynn, Wyatt, and Lucy were holding down okay on their end.

* * *

Flynn sprang for takeout, after much consultation with the bomb squad and the assurance that no, feeding Lucy French fries was not going to tip the weight on the bomb so much that it went off.

“This is the least dignified thing I have ever done,” Lucy announced, narrowing her eyes at Wyatt as if daring him to mess up in giving her a bite of sandwich.

“Do you want us to call Amy and Mason?” Flynn asked.

Wyatt held out a cup with a straw so that Lucy could sip water. “I… I’m sure I’ll be fine. The bomb squad is on it.”

Flynn swallowed, glanced over at Wyatt, then looked back at Lucy. “I think it’s… it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

The night before she’d died, Iris had been begging him to let her stay up later. _Ten more minutes, Daddy, ten more minutes. _He’d said no, because bedtime was important. Iris, always stubborn, had tried to negotiate. _Five more minutes. Two more minutes._

He would give two more seconds—even just one more second—with his little girl again.

Lucy looked back at him, and she seemed to read in his eyes all that he wasn’t saying. How she did that, Flynn didn’t know. It both elated and scared him. “If this goes sideways,” she said, forcing lightness into her voice, “and I die without calling her, Amy will find a way to resurrect me just so she can kill me all over again.”

“Smart choice,” Flynn agreed. He wondered if the casual, joking tone in his voice read as false as Lucy’s had. “I’ll make the call.”

He didn’t want to beat around the bush, but he also hated making these kinds of calls. He’d had to do a lot of them over the years, calling grieving relatives, informing them their loved one had died, and horribly, violently.

Flynn took a deep breath and dialed Amy’s number.

“Hello?” Amy answered. “Flynn?”

“Hey, Amy.” He kept his tone neutral. “We’re in a bit of a situation. I’m hoping you could grab Mason and come meet us at a location downtown.”

“Is it…” He could hear her voice trembling. “Is it a hospital?”

Oh, if only.

“Are you sitting down?”

“…you can’t just tell me that, Flynn,” Amy said, managing to sound both worried and exasperated at the same time.

He inhaled sharply. “You heard about the bomber? Fosse?”

“Three places hit this morning, yeah, it was all over the news.” Amy’s voice was still shaky but she was trying to control it. “Is Lucy…”

“She’s alive,” Flynn assured her. “But we—we have a problem. We got to his apartment but he had a bomb ready. I think in case this situation came up. Lucy—it’s a pressure plate and she stepped on it.”

Amy made a small, pained noise. Flynn closed his eyes. He could relate. “She wants you and Mason to come over.”

“But…”

Flynn cut her off before she could really start to panic. “The bomb squad is working on things, everything is under control. But she would feel better if she got to see you. You can’t come in too close, but the squad thinks it’s small, it’s not meant to take out a whole building.” _Not like Emma’s was_. “It’s Lucy. You know how she is. She doesn’t want to take the risk of not having said something, no matter how small that risk is.”

He heard Amy draw in a shaky breath, then another. “Okay. I’ll get Connor—we’ll be over soon as we can.”

“No rush. The squad’s being careful. We’re just relaxing, having lunch.” Behind him, he heard Wyatt yell something about ketchup on his shirt, followed by Lucy complaining that if he’d just done what she told him to that wouldn’t have happened.

Flynn’s heart grew three fucking sizes just hearing the two of them. “You keep us updated. We’ll let you know if the squad takes care of the bomb before you get here.”

“Thanks, Flynn. Really, um, thank you.” It sounded like Amy had a lot more to say, but was choosing not to, or wasn’t sure how. Flynn could hear the weight of unspoken words hanging in the data and electric signals buzzing back and forth between them, almost like a tangible thing.

Then Amy hung up.

“Dude,” Wyatt hissed, and Flynn jumped. He hadn’t heard Wyatt come up behind him, which was rare because, as in all things, Wyatt was about as quiet and subtle walking up to someone as a goddamn high school brass band. “What are you doing!?”

“…talking to Amy.” Was that not obvious?

Wyatt gestured towards Lucy. Flynn couldn’t see her from here, outside the apartment, but Wyatt couldn’t possibly have meant anything else. “She’s standing on a _bomb_, you moron, tell her how you feel!”

Flynn gaped at him. “She’s standing on a—you want me to—now!?”

“Yes, now, you idiot, when else!?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Wyatt,” Flynn hissed. “Maybe when she’s relaxed and comfy and calm and not possibly going to die?”

“What, do you want me to run to the corner store, get you some roses and champagne?” Wyatt hissed right back. “She might die! When else will you get the chance.”

Flynn stared at him, a little taken aback. “If that’s how you feel about the situation, Wyatt, then why aren’t you telling her?”

Wyatt blinked a few times. “Telling her what?”

Sometimes, Flynn wondered if he was attracted to idiots, at least when it came to his taste in men. “That you’re also in love with her. Tell me did you leave your brain at home this morning or…?”

“Oh, screw you,” Wyatt grumbled. “Why the hell would I—she’s in love with you, asshole, and I am really trying to get that through your goddamn head without breaking anybody’s privacy here because despite what you all seem to think I do have a fucking modicum of discretion—”

“Those are some big words there, puppy, you might want to slow down before you strain something—”

“Oh I see what this is. You’re upset, so you’re being all prickly and sarcastic, fan-fucking-tastic, asshole, well you can do that as much as you want after you go and tell her how you feel so we aren’t stuck being miserable anymore!”

“I’m not miserable!”

“Could’ve fooled me!”

“Why are you so infuriating, why, are you doing this on purpose!? Were you put on this earth just to drive me mad in every possible fashion?”

“Maybe if you weren’t being such a stubborn _dickhead_ I wouldn’t have to be so annoying! It’s life or death, you redwood piece of trash—”

“Did you just compare me to a _tree_?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you not like that particular species? How about a sequoia instead?”

“Do not make me fucking put you over my knee to teach you to stop being so _bratty_,” Flynn snarled, “you dramatic argumentative little—”

“Guys!” Lucy yelled, and from her tone, she’d been yelling for some time and they just hadn’t heard her.

Flynn froze, only a breath away from Wyatt, the two of them breathing hard and glaring into each other’s eyes, frustration etched into every inch of them.

“You know I hate breaking up your marital spats,” Lucy continued, “but I’m still kind of freaking out here, my mom still might have had an affair, I am still standing on a bomb, and I would like someone to try and help me with a little bit of that before I lose my mind.” She paused. “Also I want someone to feed me that chocolate chip cookie please.”

Wyatt pointed at Flynn, right between his eyes. “This isn’t over. If you can’t tell her now, you’re never going to.”

“Where was this pep talk the other half a dozen times we all thought we were going to die?”

“It wasn’t quite as neat as this,” Wyatt shot back. “I figured the theatricality of this one would appeal to you. Y’know, with how dramatic you are.”

On the one hand, adding stress to a life or death situation by telling Lucy how he felt was probably a bit of a selfish thing to do.

On the other hand, he suspected that in spite of that, Wyatt was right.

Flynn put his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder and shoved past him, nerves jangling, torn between the aroused zing of wanting to physically put Wyatt in his place, do something about the adrenaline and fear by fucking it out of himself through Wyatt, and sinking to the ground because he was so fucking terrified and angry at fate, at this _fucking _situation.

Of course, he did neither of those things. Lucy was staring at him, her face a bit pale, including her lips, and her eyes a bit darker and wider than usual. A bit wetter, too, if Flynn wasn’t mistaken.

So he didn’t grab Wyatt, he didn’t confess anything, and he didn’t fall under the weight.

He just picked up the chocolate chip cookie left on the counter and started breaking it into bite sized pieces.

* * *

Denise led Jess and Rufus down to the holding cells. “I want you to do your best with him. I don’t care what it takes—within the laws, Jessica—to get him to talk. You—”

They got down to the cells, and Denise froze.

Fosse was lying in his cell, his throat a mess, blood pooled under his head and all over his shirt, a pen sticking out of his jugular.

Denise tried not to swear. She didn’t mind anyone else doing it but she tried to hold herself to a high standard of eloquence, and her mother had always disliked swearing, so between the two it was a habit she’d never really cultivated.

In spite of all of that, though, the first thing that she could think of, and the first thing she said, was, “What the fuck.”

“How did he get that?” Jess demanded, crouching down as Rufus unlocked the cell.

Denise noticed a small pad of paper lying nearby, with a few words scribbled on it. “His lawyer. He must’ve requested a pen and paper to write a statement or something of the sort.” Damn it.

“Why would he commit suicide?” Rufus mused.

Jess picked up the pad of paper. “It’s all over,” she recited. “What does that mean?”

Denise frowned. “Get Jiya to do an autopsy and get that guy on the line… Diego… whatever his last name was, the computer guy who was supposed to be meeting with Fosse.”

“You think he’s got something to do with it?” Rufus asked.

“I think that there’s something we missed,” Denise replied. “And Lucy’s life is now on the line. Fosse left a live bomb in his apartment and he did it for a reason. A pressure plate one, not one that he could just set off if the police arrived—one that was set off specifically by someone standing on it. That doesn’t read like a safety net if the feds come calling.”

“I’ll get Jiya on it,” Jess said.

“I’ll talk to Diego, look through his previous victims,” Rufus added. “See if there’s a connection.”

“There is a connection,” Jess countered. “They were the people who put him in prison for arson—the prosecutor, the judge, the building inspector—”

“Diego wasn’t involved in the arson case,” Denise interrupted. “There’s something else going on here. I want us to figure it out, sooner rather than later. Hustle.”

Rufus and Jess scrambled to obey. Denise looked down at the body of Nate Fosse.

_What were you up to, you bastard, and why did you decide you would quit?_

* * *

Lucy could feel herself starting to get fatigued. Wyatt and Flynn were keeping up lively conversation, telling her more stories—stories about their cases, stories about childhood, stories about literally anything they seemed to be able to come up with (with plenty of bickering in between)—and it helped, but she could feel her legs starting to lock, her knees getting numb. Her body aching to move, to shift, to stretch.

She didn’t know how much longer her body could stand it, frozen like this.

“Lucy?”

Amy stood in the doorway, Mason next to her.

Flynn jumped up and splayed his hands out. “Whoa, stay where you are.”

“You’re right up next to her!” Amy pointed out.

“And that’s my right as a police officer,” Flynn replied, his tone kind but firm. “But as a civilian I’m going to have to ask you to stay back here, out of the blast radius.”

Lucy glanced to the side, at the baseball card still sitting there in the middle of the album. Why was that baseball card there?

“Wyatt?” she whispered. “Why did that tech guy say he was coming here? To check out Fosse’s computer?”

“Something like that.”

“Could you check again?”

Wyatt nodded, getting to his feet. “Sure thing. I should call in anyway, see if they’ve gotten anywhere with interrogating him. We could have a deactivation code for you.”

The device that Fosse had used to activate the bomb had a lock code on it, one that would, when properly put in, deactivate the bomb. It was sitting on the counter as well, near the album and the takeout food—taunting her.

Wyatt gave her one of his crooked, puppyish smiles, the kind that made his teeth stick out a little, made him look young and adorable, and then he walked into Fosse’s bedroom, pulling out his phone to make the call.

“This is bullshit,” Amy said. “Lucy, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Lucy replied. “I mean I have to pee but other than that…”

“I told you to stop drinking so much water,” Flynn said.

“He’s so helpful,” Lucy said to Amy, sarcastically. “But I’m fine, really. I just—I just wanted to say… hi, and I love you, because… you know me. I just wanted to.”

Amy gave her a watery smile.

“Is there anything we can do?” Mason asked.

Lucy swallowed. The question that had been in her mind for the past half an hour was still haunting her. “Connor…” If Mom had confided in anyone, it would’ve been him. “Was… did my mom… did she have an affair? Before—before—did she lie to me about who my father was?”

Connor’s face told her everything she needed to know.

* * *

“What do you mean!?” Wyatt hissed. Fosse couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be. If he was dead, then that meant that they had no way of possibly getting the deactivation code out of him, which meant that they had to rely on the bomb squad to hopefully deactivate the bomb without setting it off… those were way too many variables for Wyatt to be comfortable.

“I mean the guy stabbed himself with a fucking pen!” Rufus replied. “Look, buddy, trust me, if I still had hair I’d be tearing it out, I get it. But we’re working on it. We’ve got Diego, the IT guy, in here… and Jiya found something in the autopsy.”

“Damn, she works fast.”

“When she’s motivated, yeah. Listen, Fosse had stage four brain cancer. Inoperable. Jiya’s not an expert so she did some research, sent some scans in and found Fosse’s doctor. Apparently he should’ve been getting a checkup a couple years ago, said that was when he started getting headaches, but he prison guards…”

“Yeah. Fuck. So he goes to a doctor once he gets out…”

“And the guy told him a couple of months, tops.”

“So, what, he goes on this killing spree as his last blaze of glory?”

“Maybe.” Someone said something in the background—possibly Jess—and then Rufus said, “This might be nothing, but Jess just said that helping people with computers is Diego’s side gig. His other job is working in the records department for the school district.”

“That’s a nine to five, what’s he doing coming to help some guy with his computer in the middle of a Tuesday? Work couldn’t have been happy.”

“I’ll find out.” Rufus paused again. “Here’s what I don’t get. If Fosse was really out for revenge, why not go after the star witness?”

“Who was that?”

“His girlfriend at the time. Dorothy Nowack.”

Wyatt whistled lowly. “Damn, that’s rough.”

“She did the right thing.”

“Not saying she didn’t, but that has to sting. Why not go after the woman who played the biggest role in getting him convicted?”

“He loved her too much to be angry with her?”

“Ha, ha. I’ll figure it out.”

“No pressure,” Wyatt said. “But we’re kind of on a time crunch here. Lucy’s flagging.”

“I know.” Rufus took a deep breath, filling the line with static. “All right, I’ll keep you posted. Just… keep her spirits up.”

Judging by the tone of voices in the other room, that was going to be easier said than done. “No problem, buddy.”

* * *

“She was young,” Connor said. “She was young and foolish, those were her exact words to me.”

“But she let me think—” Lucy felt like she’d swallowed nails. “I don’t care that she had an affair, I’m the last person to—to judge anyone on who they fall for or even who they’re attracted to but Connor, she lied to me! About my father, she lied to Amy, she lied to her husband! Dad—”

If Dad had known the truth, he had never said anything. He had never treated her as anything other than his beloved daughter. His princess. Lucy hated that nickname coming out of Emma’s mouth, tarnishing it, perverting it. Long before she’d been ‘Princess Preston’ to that serial killer, she had been her father’s little princess. He’d even read that book to her when she was little, and she’d tried so hard just to be like Sara Crewe, to be patient and compassionate and dignified.

Connor looked stricken. Amy just looked shocked. “She always said it was a mistake. That he was… charismatic, and very smart, and that she didn’t really know what she was getting into.”

“She _cheated_,” Lucy said, her throat tight and her eyes wet.

“Mom and Dad weren’t exactly… they didn’t make any promises,” Amy tried, her voice a bit weak.

“But they were—they wrote letters! They got married as soon as Dad found out she was pregnant, she—she said it was love at first sight!” Lucy felt like screaming, like beating her fists on the ground, wondering how even after death, Mom could keep fucking with her. “How could she do that to him when she said she was in love with him!”

“Your mother,” Connor said quietly, “was not as strong as you are, Lucy.”

Lucy would’ve staggered back if she could have afforded the movement. As it was, she stared. Her gaze inexplicably flew to where Flynn stood quietly off to the side, looking like he was acutely aware of how awkward this was but also like he would rather be nowhere else.

All she had grown up knowing was about Carol Preston’s iron will, her backbone of steel, her indomitable will. Carol Preston was a force of nature, a hurricane, an immovable mountain.

To be told that her mother was not as _strong_? That Carol might have, in fact, been the weaker one?

Lucy didn’t know what to do with that.

“Your mother had a great deal of willpower,” Connor acknowledged. “And a dominant personality. But there is more to strength than that, I’ve come to find. There is… strength of conviction in what you believe, strength to resist temptation, strength to hold to one’s principles. I am… not so strong in the latter, at times, and I regret it. And I think your mother was the same, and I think she also regretted it.” He paused. “Except for the fact that she never regretted you. She did love you, Lucy, however you came about.”

Lucy swallowed. “You know this doesn’t change anything, right?” she asked Amy. “You’re my sister. Biology or no biology.”

“I know,” Amy promised. “Of course I know that. Not even an Infinite Crisis could stop us.”

“You are such a nerd,” Connor said proudly.

Flynn looked at Lucy and gave her a very tiny, very fond, and dare she even say very proud, smile. She felt like she could hear all the things he wasn’t saying, his gaze boring into hers. _You have that. You have what she didn’t._

In spite of all the temptation. The darkness. The anger. The grief.

“Who is he?” she asked, looking at Connor. “Who’s my father, then?”

Connor sighed. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Can’t as in you don’t know? Or can’t as in you’re refusing?”

“Can’t as in, this is a discussion that we need to have when you’re off that blasted bomb and we can take our time and I’m not stuck across an apartment talking to you,” Connor replied.

Lucy had almost forgotten about the bomb. Her legs felt numb again. “I want answers.”

“I want you off that thing,” Amy said, her voice high-pitched.

“We’ll get her off it,” Flynn promised.

“I love you,” Lucy said. “I love you both. I’m angry at you, Connor, I’m really angry. You should’ve told me, I shouldn’t have Wyatt doing random math on the weight of fucking… babies to realize my mom… you should’ve told me.”

Connor looked like he’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes.

“But I still love you. And I love you, Amy, so much. I’m going to be okay. But I just wanted to say it, I wanted to… say hi.” _I wanted to see you just in case. I wanted to say goodbye._

She didn’t actually say goodbye, of course. That would be a bit too maudlin and she was trying to keep her spirits up. Or rather Amy’s spirits up. No need for her sister to cry prematurely.

Someone was coming up the stairs—the bomb squad leader. “You should go,” Flynn said quietly, nodding at Amy and Connor.

Amy looked furious that she couldn’t run over and hug Lucy, but she blew her a kiss. Lucy kissed the air in return, too nervous about shifting the weight of the pressure panel to move her arm.

Connor bowed to her, which would’ve been ridiculous coming from anyone else, but made perfect sense when he did it—and wrapped his arm around Amy’s shoulders, leading her down the hallway.

Lucy tried very, very, very hard, and managed not to cry.

* * *

Amy was a complete wreck the moment they got downstairs, so Mason of course called Jess, and took Amy to the station to meet her.

“Why don’t you go get some tissues from the restroom, baby?” Jess suggested after a long, crushing hug hello. “She’s going to be fine, you know that. Lucy’s a plucky one.”

Amy nodded, accepted a kiss on the cheek, and trooped to the bathroom.

The moment she had, Jess grabbed Mason by the arms and yanked him bodily into the break room. “When the fuck are you going to tell Lucy the truth!?” she hissed.

Mason stared at her. “The truth?” About Carol’s affair? How would Jess know about that?

Jess glared at him, her knuckles going white as her fingers twisted in his lapels. “About Cahill, Mason. About why he’s being lenient. About why Lockwood isn’t allowed to harm her.”

Mason gaped, staring into Jess’s eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been truly gob smacked like this. Truly, utterly shocked.

“Oh, you reckless little girl,” he whispered. “I should’ve known.”

Jess released him, then smoothed down his jacket where she’d rumpled it. “I don’t regret it. I’m learning a lot. It’ll be useful.”

“You’re the reason he hasn’t gone after Flynn again, aren’t you? What did you promise them?”

“My servitude,” Jess replied. “I keep Flynn off his family’s case and I do a few side jobs for them, and they leave him alone. So far so good. I’m building a case.”

“A case that will fall apart the moment they point out you got it all illegally.”

“I was undercover.”

“Nobody sanctioned that.”

“Denise will say she did, for Flynn’s sake. I know Wyatt’s been on her ass since the whole Keynes thing and how she handled it but she’s got a soft spot for Flynn, she always has.” Jess arched an eyebrow at him. “You need to tell Lucy.”

Mason shook his head. “You should’ve killed Cahill when you had the chance.”

“He’s not alone. You know that. Rittenhouse isn’t just one person. Another member could retaliate. We need to take them all down at once, arrest them properly.”

“Good luck with that,” Mason whispered. “Did you think people haven’t tried? You think you’re the first renegade cop they’ve dealt with? Cahill was like you, once upon a time.”

Jess smiled at him, cold, hard, like a stone in winter. “Nobody is like me.”

The bathroom door opened and the smile slid off Jess’s face. “Lucy’s owed the truth. She needs to know.”

Amy walked in and Jess opened her arms, all comforting smiles and warm hugs. Mason tugged at his collar.

It had suddenly gotten quite hot in the room.

* * *

“What is it?” Flynn asked once Amy and Mason were out of earshot.

The squad leader’s face did not bode the arrival of good news. “We cut through and found the bomb. There’s a timer on it.”

“…a timer?” Wyatt asked, emerging from the bedroom.

Lucy made a sound that was not quite a squeak.

“Yes.” The squad leader nodded. “Half an hour left. It’s counting down.”

Flynn looked over at Lucy and knew that the panic he was feeling was written all over his face. “Can you disable it?”

“We’re going to try,” was the response. “Any luck on our guy?”

“He’s dead,” Wyatt said shortly.

“What!?” Flynn roared, not realizing until he’d done it how much anger and volume he’d put into the outburst.

If the guy was going to go and die, then Flynn would have been happy to do it for him, make it nice and painful the way the man deserved.

“He was dying, stage four brain cancer, he had only a couple months,” Wyatt explained. “When he realized the game was up, he stabbed himself.”

“Motherfucker,” Flynn swore in English, and then added a few colorful expletives in Croatian for good measure.

Wyatt’s phone rang, and Wyatt went back into the bedroom to answer it. Flynn looked over at the resident expert. “How confident are you about… this? What are the odds?”

They both glanced over at Lucy, who was watching them, clearly wishing that she could fidget but holding as still as she could.

“Fifty-fifty,” was the admission.

Flynn swallowed. Fifty-fifty was not good enough.

“When the timer gets close enough, you two need to go.”

“No.” He wasn’t leaving Lucy. Never.

He got an arched eyebrow in return. “I doubt you’ll be given a choice in the matter. I’ll get back to work.”

Flynn walked over to Lucy, who was obviously straining herself now to stay still. “What did he say?” she asked, her voice subdued.

Christ, she’d been through so much today already. How could he tell her that her chances had just become slim to none?

Wyatt emerged from the room. “Okay, so Rufus and Jess talked to our techie guy. Turns out, he lied earlier about coming to fix Fosse’s computer because he didn’t want to get in trouble with work. He was coming to buy a rare baseball card off of Fosse.”

Flynn saw Lucy’s eyes fly to the album on the counter. “That one?”

“Must be,” Wyatt said.

“…it’s right where the bomb is,” Flynn realized. “He was using the card to trap the guy.” But why?

“Maybe he needed something adjusted on the bomb?” Wyatt suggested. “Something technical?” He paused. “Fosse’s girlfriend went into witness protection, Rufus told me. Maybe this guy could work some fancy… computer magic and find her…”

“That’s not how you find someone in witness protection,” Lucy said. Her gaze darted around the room. “We must’ve missed something…” Her eyes lit up and she carefully tipped her head towards the couch that was facing the place where she stood. “Flynn, that laptop…”

“It looks like Fosse was sitting with it,” Flynn said. “In a position where he could watch whoever was standing where you are.”

He walked over and picked up the laptop, opening it. There was no password. Instead it was open to what looked like the website for a school board of some kind.

What?

“Flynn?”

He looked up. So did Wyatt.

“Can you…” Lucy blinked a few times, batting away the shine in her eyes. “Can you two promise me something?”

“Anything,” Wyatt blurted out.

Flynn nodded. Anything.

“Will you do as I say?” Lucy asked.

“Of course.” He only realized after he’d said it that Wyatt had chorused the exact same words.

“Promise me,” Lucy said. “Promise me you’ll do as I say. No matter what. Promise.”

“I promise,” Flynn told her, Wyatt echoing him. “_Obećajem_,” he added in Croatian, for good measure.

Lucy smiled at him, looking both relieved, and like she might cry. Then her face grew focused. “Why is that open to a school board webpage?”

“Beats me,” Flynn said.

“Wait—wait.” Wyatt waved his hands. “Wait, Rufus said that the guy who was coming in ditched his day job—his day job at the records office for the school district.”

Flynn saw the moment the idea leapt into Lucy’s eyes. “His girlfriend—was she pregnant? When he went to jail?”

“That’s how he wanted to find her,” Flynn realized. “Through her kid, through the school district, there would be record of the kid.”

“He wanted to see his kid,” Wyatt said. “Before he… before he died. He wanted his revenge and he wanted to see his kid. That’s why he was so desperate he put a bomb in his own damn apartment.”

“A bomb that he must have thought he wouldn’t activate,” Lucy pointed out. “All the guy had to do was give him the information so Fosse could type it into the computer.”

“I’ll call Denise,” Wyatt said. “She’ll be glad we’ve got an explanation for this whole thing.”

Flynn nodded at Lucy and forced a smile to his face. “We’re one step closer. We’ll figure this out.” They had to.

Should he tell her? Wyatt seemed to think so. Should he just… forget about making it perfect and blurt out all the things that were living in his chest for so long, making such a home there, that he had no idea how to rip it all up if he’d tried, if he’d even wanted to? How did you look someone in the eye and say _you’re a part of me?_

He’d done it once, with Lorena, but only partly. Lorena had been the one to ask him out, the one to initiate. He’d kissed her at the end of their first date, just the softest, briefest of kisses, trembling with nerves outside her front door. It had taken a month of steadily increasing time in front of that damn door to get up the nerve to follow her inside when she offered him a cup of coffee (when of course there was no actual coffee to be had). Another year after that for him to propose, even though he’d known after the third date that she was the woman he wanted to marry.

Lorena had started it, not him. He might have given her the ring in the end but by that point he’d been reasonably—more than reasonably—certain that she would say yes and was possibly reaching the point where she’d pull out a ring herself if he didn’t get his ass in gear. Now he had to start it. He had to be the one to step forward and make that choice. And he was—he was terrified. He had love, once, and then he’d lost it, and he couldn’t go through losing it again. To lose Lucy now, or Wyatt, would be to sink him, but wouldn’t it be so much worse if he had them all the way instead of part of the way?

Or did that only make him a coward? _Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, _or so went the saying. Would it really make that big of a difference to his heart?

And what if Wyatt was wrong? He was certain, so certain, but Flynn… his mother had often chastised him for it, and he knew that it was partly out of guilt, because the loss of Gabriel had weighed her down in spite of her efforts and he’d felt it and felt inadequate, not a good enough replacement. It was only now, having lost Iris, that he understood that while he did wish to be a father again, someday, no child he had would replace her. Never. His darling flower, he’d called her, and she would never be swept aside for another.

Whatever the cause, though, he couldn’t escape the voice that whispered _you aren’t wanted. You aren’t desired. Not fully. Not really. Not you._

How could Lucy, a candle on the water, ever want the battered, broken pieces that made up Garcia Flynn?

“Detective Flynn? Detective Logan?”

Wyatt emerged from the bedroom and Flynn turned, the both of them looking at the bomb squad leader.

“Sir?” Wyatt asked. Flynn ignored his usual irritated flip of his stomach when Wyatt addressed someone that way. All right, so maybe there had been something to Mistress Juno’s little comments back in the BDSM club after all, her observations about Flynn wanting to make Wyatt take his orders, obey him, submit to him.

But now was definitely not the time.

“It’s time.”

Flynn knew what that meant.

Time to go.

* * *

Lucy’s heart, which had been sluggish in her body, weighing her down, making her want to sink into the floor, kicked up at those words and climbed so high up into her throat she thought she would vomit it up.

_It’s time._

“We have to clear the area,” the bomb squad leader—what was his name, Jamison? Jackson? Lucy realized that she hadn’t paid attention. “That means you two need to leave. We only have so much time left. I’ve dismissed most of my team.”

“No.” Flynn’s voice was like a cracking whip. Wyatt seemed to be frozen.

“I’ll be here until the end,” the man promised them. Johnson, maybe? Lucy wondered why this was the thing she was worrying about, right at this moment, when she was going to die in… oh, about fifteen minutes. “So will a couple of my most seasoned team members. We’re not going to give up. But we have to follow protocol and that means getting as many people out of the building as possible. I’m sorry but you’re nonessential to this.”

“Nonessential?” Flynn sounded like the man had just told him that the sky was magenta.

“I’ll take care of this,” Lucy found herself saying quietly. _Your mother was not as strong as you are, Lucy. _“Thank you for your service.”

“Don’t give up hope just yet, Miss Preston,” was the reply.

Lucy closed her eyes and tried to keep breathing, tried not to pass out. When she opened them, Flynn and Wyatt were still standing there. Watching her. Flynn looked furious. Wyatt looked scared.

“It’s okay,” she told them. Just like she used to when Amy would crawl into her bed at night with bad dreams. “I’m going to be all right.”

There was so much she wanted to tell them. That she was richer for having known them. That working with them and the rest of the team had saved her life. That she wouldn’t trade in a second by their sides. But most of all… most of all she wanted… no, she needed to tell them…

She had to say it. She’d never get another chance. And at least now if he didn’t feel the same, neither of them had to live with it. “Garcia?”

Flynn blinked a few times, obviously surprised at the use of his first name. “Yes?”

The words almost didn’t come out. She had to clear her throat. “I love you.”

Flynn stared at her for a second, his face slack with shock, and then he was bursting forward, moving towards her like he’d been shot out of a cannon, only to slam to a halt a foot away from her, hitting the invisible wall created by the line of spray paint on the floor. He looked like he’d literally rammed into a slab of concrete. His whole body was vibrating, and Lucy knew, she _knew_, that it was because he wanted to touch her and couldn’t.

She knew, because that was the reason she was vibrating, too.

Flynn’s gaze searched hers, and oh, she had never known what agony looked like until this moment. “You meant it? I thought—you never said—”

Understanding hit her like a cold wave of salty, drowning-deep water. “You heard me? You remembered? I thought you forgot, you never—”

“I was waiting for you! I said—I said that I was ready to move on—”

“Not like _that_, you didn’t, I didn’t know—you should’ve just said you heard—”

“I thought you might want to take it back. That it was all… heat of the moment and that you didn’t really…”

“I did. I do.” Each breath felt like someone was slowly inserting a knife into her throat. “I do, I love you.”

“I love you,” Flynn echoed. His voice was a raw whisper. “I’ve always loved you.”

“Garcia!” Wyatt’s voice was cracking. “We have to go, now!”

“I’m not leaving.”

Lucy knew he would hate her for this. “Make him leave.” She swallowed and said it again, louder. “Wyatt, make him leave.”

“You can’t.” Flynn’s gaze was still on her. “I won’t.”

“Either you leave, or I’m staying,” Wyatt said. “Your choice.”

“You’re definitely leaving,” Flynn ordered. “I outlived one family, I’m not going to outlive another, you can’t make me go through that.”

“And you can’t make me kill you,” Lucy replied.

Wyatt made a noise like someone was ripping him in two. “There has to be another solution, there has to—”

“Go!” She screamed it, the sound coming from below her feet, taking over her whole body. “You promised you would do as I said. You promised me! So _leave_.”

Flynn looked like he’d been slapped, and in that moment Wyatt grabbed him, yanked him away. “You promised,” he said, forcing Flynn to turn around and marching him out.

Lucy swallowed, the effort of holding in the tears almost sending her crashing to the floor. He loved her. He loved her back. The _maybe_, the _if only_, the _almost_ of it all felt like the worst thing she had ever known, the unholiest of truths. _We could have, we should have, we nearly…_

They disappeared, and she had the nonsensical thought that she wished she could’ve heard him say her name one last time.

* * *

Wyatt had never gotten such a goddamn workout in his life, dragging Flynn out of there and towards the stairs. “We promised, Garcia, for fuck’s sake—I’m losing her, I’m not losing you, too—”

“You can’t—neither of you can make me—”

“I can’t but she sure can.” Wyatt shoved him back. “You promised her. She’ll die unhappy—she’ll die fucking miserable if you go back in there and she knows you died with her. Give her this, for God’s sake, it’s her last request.”

Flynn froze, and for a second, Wyatt thought he’d said the wrong thing. “Last request,” Flynn repeated.

“…yes?” Wyatt said, confused.

Flynn grabbed him by the shoulders. “Wyatt. Wyatt, I would give anything, _anything_, for another second with my daughter. No matter what.”

“…okay?” What did Iris have to do with this?

“Dorothy Nowack,” Flynn said. “She was pregnant during the trial. She had a kid. We’re idiots—why was he checking the school district? For the child, why the child—”

Understanding crashed over Wyatt in a wave. “His child, it was all he could think about—he would do anything for his child—”

“The deactivation code,” they both blurted out at the same moment.

“Get me the kid’s name,” Flynn said, already running back towards the apartment. “Get me the kid’s name!”

Wyatt dialed frantically. “C’mon, Rufus, c’mon…”

“Hello?”

“The kid! Their name!” Wyatt hurried after Flynn. “Fosse’s kid, with his girlfriend, what was the kid’s name, get us the name! Now!”

“Jesus Christ…”

“It’s the deactivation code, Rufus,” Wyatt explained, skidding to a stop inside the apartment as Lucy gave a helpless, tiny scream.

“You can’t be here!” she told them, as Flynn grabbed the device that Fosse had used, still sitting on the counter.

“Like hell we can’t,” Flynn shot back.

“Um… his name’s William.”

“William!” Wyatt repeated to Flynn.

“Too long, the code’s only five letters.”

“Billy,” Lucy said. “Billy, it’s short for William—but Garcia, what if you’re wrong, what if—what if you put it in wrong and then it blows—give it to me and get out of here—”

“It’ll change the weight on the pressure plate, no. I’m doing this.”

Wyatt’s felt like he might faint, feeling dizzy and weightless and nauseous all at once, as Flynn punched in the code and hit the green ‘enter’ button.

For a moment, nothing happened. Wyatt held his breath.

The lights on the device flashed green, and underneath Lucy, Wyatt heard something click, and _whoosh_ back into place.

“Oh thank fuck,” he croaked.

Lucy got a blinding smile on her face—and then her legs gave out.

* * *

Flynn caught her, holding her close—holding her, holding _Lucy_, he could hold her, he could touch her—as Lucy grabbed for him. “Whoa, whoa, steady, I’ve got you.”

“Yeah, yeah! You did it, you fucking brilliant bastard!” Wyatt was telling Rufus, whooping. “You fucking—the bomb’s off, tell Amy, tell Denise, the bomb’s fucking done! Fucking toast!”

“It’s not toast,” Flynn informed him, working an arm underneath Lucy’s knees to pick her up. “The squad still has to dismantle it.”

“Killjoy,” Wyatt told him, still grinning wide enough to split his face, and Flynn wanted to kiss him so hard Wyatt’s tongue went numb.

“I’m doing yoga for days,” Lucy said faintly. “And, um, not that I don’t love the cuddling here, we can cuddle as much as you want, but I really, _really _need to use the bathroom.”

Flynn gently set her down and held onto her shoulders as Lucy worked out her legs, wincing at the pins and needles she was undoubtedly feeling. She smiled at him when she noticed him watching, and Flynn thought he might literally melt through the floor.

He almost wanted to ask her if she was sure. If she wanted to take it back, now that she actually wasn’t about to die.

But that could—that could wait. Once Lucy had her bearings he let go and she went into the bathroom, while Wyatt yelled at Denise, Amy, Rufus, whoever was on the phone now, telling them to get their asses over here.

At last, he hung up. And looked at Flynn.

Should he tell Wyatt? _Hey, since we’re all confessing right now, figured I should say…_

“Congratulations,” Wyatt told him. “And it only took until the last goddamn second.”

“I didn’t tell her,” Flynn pointed out. “She told me.”

“Eh, does it even matter at this point?” Wyatt gave a smile, but it looked a bit pained. “Amy and the others are on their way, should be here in record time. Protocol or not I think Jess is laying on the sirens.”

“I’m surprised they aren’t already right outside.”

“Apparently Denise forbid them. She didn’t want them to see… in case it went bad, she said… it would only be worse if they were there, and they watched.”

Fair enough. Flynn nodded.

“Anyway.” Wyatt shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’ll go talk to our fearless bomb squad, see what’s up on their end.”

Flynn’s fingers itched to stop him, but he wasn’t sure if he should. Wyatt loved Lucy, what more was there to say? Flynn had thought Lucy loved Wyatt, but apparently she loved him, and he wasn’t sure if he should hope that she loved both of them, as he loved both her and Wyatt. To ask someone to love two people, was that not… selfish?

He struggled with it, and then the moment had passed, and Wyatt was gone.

* * *

Lucy took care of business, then sat on the edge of the bathtub and proceeded to sob.

Her legs hurt. Her entire body hurt, actually. Who knew just standing still for so long could be so exhausting? So taxing? She was shaking all over, and she couldn’t seem to make it stop.

Odd, that she’d take this entire situation over dealing with Emma and Keynes again. But that didn’t make any of it pleasant.

But she’d told Flynn. She’d told him, and he loved her back, and he—he wanted her, he loved her, he was in love with her and she didn’t have to hold herself back anymore—

That was making her cry almost as much as the entire bomb situation, honestly. The sheer relief, the unleashing of emotion after a year of holding it back, it was all too much.

At last, though, she realized she probably had people waiting for her, not just the boys, and she stood up on shaky legs, blowing her nose and rinsing off her face. A look in the mirror told her that she still looked like she’d been through the wringer, but then, nobody could blame her for that.

Lucy took a deep breath, undid her ponytail, fluffed her hair, and stepped back out into the apartment.

Wyatt was gone, but Flynn was waiting, looking anxious. He’d probably heard her crying.

“I might need your arm,” Lucy admitted. “My legs are still a bit… uncooperative.”

Flynn crossed to her at once, holding out his arm for her to take, and it reminded her of their first mission, how unimpressed with her he’d been, how they’d danced together and she’d looked at him and thought… not, _oh, it’s you_, more like, _oh, it could very well be you, if I’m not careful._

She hadn’t been careful at all.

They didn’t say anything, either of them—she didn’t know what to say, other than ridiculous sappy things like repeating _I love you _until her lips fell off from saying it. She didn’t want to say anything, really, she wanted to kiss him and hold him, press herself into him until she forgot they were two separate people. Flynn kept shooting her these awestruck, absolutely adorable looks from underneath the hair flopping into his face, looking so much younger, so much softer, than she’d ever seen him before. He looked almost bashful.

_Was this what you were like? _She wanted to ask. _Before the world stole everything from you?_

They got to the first floor, and she was instantly mobbed.

Amy crashed into her, and then Jiya, and then Jess, while Rufus laughed. Lucy sank to her knees, trying to wrap her arms around all three of the women, laughing and crying at the same time, until she was hiccupping and Flynn was shoving them all away and telling them to give her some room.

“You need to make a statement,” Jess said, wincing apologetically. “Down at the station.”

“I’ll drive her,” Mason volunteered.

Flynn looked mutinous, but Mason was already helping Lucy to her feet. “You have to wait for Wyatt,” she told him, trying to placate him. She didn’t want to be separated either. Now that she could touch him, she felt like she’d die if she stopped. “I’ll see you there.”

Flynn glared at Mason, but then softened as he looked at her and nodded. _We have time, _she thought. They had time. They could be patient.

Mason escorted her to his car. “I’m afraid I have a bit of an ulterior motive in asking you to come with me,” he told her.

“Oh?” Lucy asked. “What’s that?”

Mason gave her an oddly sad look. “We’ll talk after you give your statement.”

Lucy wondered what that all meant. It was probably about… about Mom. About what she’d discovered.

She braced herself. Still one more hurdle, then. The day wasn’t over yet.

* * *

Wyatt was oddly quiet as they finished up everything they needed to, so Flynn kept his thoughts to himself as they got back to the precinct. “I’m actually…” Wyatt cleared his throat. “I’m going to talk to Jess about something, with Amy and Lucy, I’ll see you back at the apartment?”

“I can wait,” Flynn said, even though he really didn’t want to. He wanted to see Lucy.

Wyatt shook his head. “Nah, you’ve waited long enough. You’re practically vibrating. Go and see her. Just make sure you air the place out and spray Febreeze before I get back, okay?”

“Very funny.”

Wyatt gave a smile that was more like a wince and then walked away.

Hmm. Flynn would have to talk to him about this later.

He debated being an idiot and getting flowers or something for Lucy on the way home, then decided he was being a massive sap and he didn’t really have the patience anyway and went straight back to the apartment.

“Lucy?” he stepped in and paused.

Lucy was sitting on the couch, her face in her hands. She didn’t move when he entered, or when he closed the door behind him.

“Lucy?” he repeated.

She still didn’t move.

Flynn walked over, gingerly sitting down beside her. “Hey, what’s the matter?”

Lucy dropped her hands down, away from her face. She looked like she’d been crying nonstop since he’d last seen her. “Was it something Mason said?” he asked.

She swallowed, then sniffed. “You could say that,” she said, her voice hoarse.

“Tell me.”

Lucy gave a horrible laugh, a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh, a laugh that sounded like someone was ripping into her chest. “I used to think there was an order to all of this. That there was… something out there. I believe in free will, that we have choices, and that what we do has consequence, but that there was still… _someone_. Now I’m thinking that maybe there is someone, or something, and it’s just laughing at us. Forcing us to play out these… twisted little games.”

“What are you talking about?” She was scaring him, now. Not for himself, never for himself, but for her. Flynn took her hand. “Lucy. Talk to me.”

Lucy looked at him. “You won’t love me after this.”

He stared at her. “I… I don’t know how to explain that’s not possible.”

Lucy laughed again, that same hideous not-laugh. “I kicked him out.” It was such a non-sequitur that it took Flynn a moment to realize who she meant. “I told him to leave, not to come back, not to talk to me again… I’m not sure if I mean it now but I meant it when I said it.”

“What did he tell you?” Was it about her father? Her mother?

Lucy rubbed at her already-red eyes. “Connor told me that… that he knew who my father was. And that—that my father was the reason you’re not—that Lockwood didn’t try again.”

Flynn’s breath went still and silent in his chest.

Lucy swallowed. “My father’s… my father’s Benjamin Cahill. The senator. He’s the one—and he—he helped fund some of Connor’s plays, Mom introduced them, and Connor says he doesn’t—that he didn’t know all of it until later but—but Cahill was the third cop we were looking for. He was the one who took the ransom money and made it big. And he has a whole—a whole team, they’re called Rittenhouse, all these rich people and they—”

He had to stand up. He had to move. Was this how Lucy had felt inside the car? Trapped, confined, the walls closing in, his own skin suddenly a coffin?

Flynn stood up and began to pace. Lucy made a choked noise and then forced herself to keep going. “Cahill did it. He ordered the hit—Lorena was getting too close to the truth and he ordered it, he—my father, he did that, he’s hurt so many—so many people and he—” She was hiccupping. “He killed your family. My father killed your family.”

A vague memory came to him. _So, you’re Lucy Preston’s date. She usually just brings her sister. _An old man with a rather knowing air, and the smile of a shark that just had to open its mouth for the fish to swim inside, no longer having to hunt. _You must be someone special if she’s brought you along._

He’d made a joke about being a hired escort. It was at the charity gala, their first case. He’d known that the man looked vaguely familiar—but he’d then forgotten about it, swept up in the case. Swept up in Lucy.

Senator Benjamin Cahill. He obviously kept tabs on his daughter.

Flynn realized that Lucy was staring at him, her hands clasped together. “Say something,” she begged. “Garcia, please, say something.”

Numbness was fading, swiftly being replaced by anger. He knew the name, now. He knew the person. He knew, he knew, he _knew _who had killed his wife and daughter, his girls, his _girls_, he knew—

Flynn made sure his gun was still on him and he headed for the door.

“Garcia?” Lucy. She couldn’t come with him. She couldn’t be an accessory to what he was going to do.

“Stay here,” he told her. “I’ll be back.”

Lucy said something else, her voice high-pitched, cracking, desperate, but he didn’t hear it over the blood roaring in his ears.

_Cahill. Rittenhouse. _He was going to end this, end this now.

* * *

Wyatt was almost home when Lucy called. “Hey, you guys hungry after all the making out you’re doing? I can stop by Rollo’s and get a pizza.”

“How far are you?” Lucy sounded like she’d just found a poisonous snake in her bed.

Wyatt nearly ran a red light and had to slam on the brakes. “Um, about five minutes away, why?”

Lucy started crying. “You’re not going to believe this and I don’t have time to explain, you just have to trust me. I need you to pick me up and drive where I tell you and we have to be fast, we have to stop Flynn.”

“What? Stop him from doing what?” The light turned green again and Wyatt hit the gas.

Five minutes, he’d said? He’d do it in two.

“My father is the man who ordered the hit on Lorena and Iris,” Lucy said in a rush.

“What—”

“I said I don’t have time to explain! Mason told me. I—I told Flynn and I said who it is and Flynn left and he had this look in his eye and I know he’s going to kill him and then Flynn will go to jail for the rest of his life and we can’t let him do this! We can’t let him throw his life away!”

Wyatt whipped the car around the corner and slammed to a halt in front of the apartment complex. Lucy was already outside, clutching her phone. She dove for the passenger door and Wyatt unlocked the car, letting her in. “I’ll give you directions.”

He sped up through Manhattan and the Upper East Side, through town, out of town, into the swanky neighborhoods of the upper state, where it was quiet and the fat cats could go and escape all the hustle and bustle. “So wait, who is your father?”

“Senator Benjamin Cahill.” Lucy’s fingers twisted over and under one another on her lap. “Wyatt, you should tell him. About how you feel.”

“Not right now I fucking shouldn’t,” Wyatt pointed out, taking a sharp left turn.

“But you should.”

“Lucy, he loves you, it was kind of a big deal earlier today, don’t know if you noticed, but I think birds started singing and a fucking angelic choir burst into song.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I love you—right, right, turn right!”

Wyatt whipped around the corner and nearly slammed into a parked car, correcting just in time, whipping past. He was doing sixty-five in a residential area where the speed limit couldn’t be more than twenty-five, but he dared any officer to try and pull him over right now. He’d once outrun the DEA over the border, he could outrun a fucking traffic cop in upstate New York.

“Here,” Lucy said, pointing. “Here, park here, that’s the house.”

Wyatt slowed to a more respectable thirty, rolling past the house and parking a few houses up the street, trying to avoid suspicion. “Do you see him?”

Lucy squinted. “No. But he’s probably going around the back.”

Fair point. “You take the left, I’ll go around from the right.”

Lucy nodded, her face pale.

They split up, and Wyatt crept around the right side of the house, keeping an eye out for any security system, dogs, or nosy neighbors. “Flynn?” he whispered. “Garcia?”

Goddamn, this was a huge fucking house. He hated rich people. Who needed fourteen rooms!?

As he crept up around to the backyard, he heard voices, and he nearly tripped with panic. He knew both of those voices, and it did not sound like it was going well.

“Get out of my way, Lucy.”

“No.”

Wyatt moved through the shadows and finally got a clear view.

Holy shit.

If there was anyone else in the house besides Cahill, Wyatt couldn’t see them. But Cahill himself was sure as fuck at home. He was sitting in an armchair facing away from the wide glass-paned back doors, reading a newspaper while some news report or other (Fox? Of course it was Fox News) played on the television. Flynn was standing on the bricked porch, one foot back enough to be on the grass instead, and his gun was up, aiming right for the back of Cahill’s head.

And standing right in the middle, in the line of fire, was Lucy.

“You can’t do this,” Lucy whispered.

“I think you’ll find that I can,” Flynn shot back. He looked like he’d been crying, his face ashen but his eyes rimmed red, glazed in agony, his hair a mess. “Lucy, _move_.”

“No.” Lucy looked furious and terrified, but she stood her ground. Wyatt would’ve liked to see Carol Preston do the same. He doubted she ever would have. “No, because you will regret it. You don’t want to kill in cold blood, I know you don’t.”

“Then maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“I know that on our first case you told me you didn’t feel like you could be a husband again,” Lucy said, her voice wet. “You said you can’t be a father, but you can, Flynn you _can_, but not if you do this. Not if you do this, and I think somewhere you know that. You know it.”

“This would end it!”

“You don’t know that!”

Flynn shook his head, his face crumpled up with rage and grief, so much grief it was all spilling over. Wyatt hadn’t seen him look like that since right after the funeral. “Lucy, I am telling you one last time—_move_.”

It was said quietly but it might as well have been shouted in pure agony for the way it tore at Wyatt’s heart.

Lucy shook her head. “No.”

Flynn took a step towards her as if to throw her out of the way and shoot regardless, but Wyatt quickly raised his gun—raised it before he even registered that he was doing so—and pointed it at Flynn’s arm.

Flynn noticed him and turned, betrayal flashing in his eyes. Wyatt had never felt sicker in his life. “Really. Really, Wyatt, you’re going to shoot me?”

“To save your life?” Wyatt replied. “To keep you out of prison, keep the rest of Rittenhouse from retaliating and Lockwood succeeding this time? Yeah.” He cocked the gun. “Yeah, I’ll shoot you.”

Flynn glared at him, gun still pointed towards Cahill—towards Lucy—and Wyatt thought he might honestly throw up. Or that Flynn might split into a thousand pieces in pure fury.

There was the sound of a door opening somewhere, the front door, Wyatt thought, and Cahill got up—and walked out of the room, not looking back even once, going to greet whoever it was.

The gun dropped and Flynn backed away. Lucy made to follow him, but Flynn held up a hand. “No.” His voice was cold, and it sent a horrible shiver down Wyatt’s spine. He’d never heard Flynn sound _cold _before.

Flynn strode across the back lawn, through the grass, and Wyatt darted forward to grab Lucy before someone came back into the room and saw them.

He wanted to go after Flynn, but he didn’t know that the consequences of that would be. For the first time, he didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to quench the fire of Flynn’s wrath. Especially not when he also had Lucy to take care of.

“He’ll come home,” Wyatt said. “He just needs time to cool off. He’ll come home.”

Even as he said it, he knew he was lying.

* * *

She’d fucked up.

She’d fucked everything up.

She should’ve told him differently, somehow, she should’ve waited and talked to others first, she should’ve explained better, she should’ve stopped him leaving the apartment, she should’ve…

“Luce.” Wyatt draped a blanket over her on the couch. “Lucy. This isn’t your fault.”

She sat up, hating herself for crumpling, for crying even more after all the crying she’d already done. “He’s gone. I lost him.”

“Shh.” Wyatt hugged her. “You didn’t lose him, okay? You couldn’t lose him. He loves you.”

Was it enough, though? Was it enough to forgive the betrayal that Flynn saw in her behavior? Was it enough to overcome the grief and anger she’d seen in him, the gulf of pain that yawned like a chasm between the two of them?

“That doesn’t mean he’ll come back,” Lucy whispered.

Wyatt rocked her for a minute, then had her lean against the back of the couch. “Stay here.”

He got up and returned a moment later with a sheaf of papers, all carefully stapled together. Some of them—no, most of them—had suspicious brown stains on them, like coffee.

“He threw these in the trash, after the, uh, fiasco this morning,” Wyatt explained. He handed her the papers and sat down next to her. “He’s been trying to get it right for weeks. He wanted it to be… to be perfect, for you. Nothing less was good enough.”

Lucy read through the pages, her heart feeling like someone was slowly twisting a knife through it. He’d quoted Keats for her. He’d quoted Sayers, too, although he admitted _I know that you prefer Christie, but she’s better if you want a poisoner, not a lover, and I can’t think of a line that better describes what I’m trying to accomplish her than, “I would like to write you words that burn the pages they are written on.”_

Gaudy Night. She knew that one.

There were several passages in Croatian, ones she couldn’t understand, but there was plenty in English, plenty in Flynn’s own words: _I think you’re right, I think God led me to you._

_I think you’re flawed and imperfect and sometimes insanity-inducing and I love you so much for it I think I’m bleeding from the ache in my chest._

_I’ve started waking up earlier for the nights when you’re in bed with us so I can enjoy holding you._

_I don’t know how to say it, I’m terrible at saying it, I get clammed up and I don’t know if it’s the English or if it’s just me because I was just as bad at this with Matej and Lorena but at the same time I don’t know how you can’t know, Lucy._

And at the last, the final:

_I heard you. I heard you, and I remembered. I waited for you to admit to me that you said it. I waited for you to ask me about it. But you never did. I thought it meant you didn’t mean it. That you had changed your mind. Wyatt tells me I’m stupid for thinking that. But I hope you understand how it is for me to look at you. I can’t think that you of all people would want a broken piece of pottery when you could have any fine china in the shop. But I did hear you. I heard. I remembered. It was all I heard, in the darkness._

Lucy crumpled the pages a little as she folded herself in two, and Wyatt quickly hugged her again. “You see?” He was trying to sound certain, and upbeat, and didn’t succeed. “He loves you, Lucy. He’ll never stop. He couldn’t. That’s not how Flynn operates. He’ll come home. I know him. He’ll come home for you.”

Lucy clutched the papers to her chest with one hand, holding onto Wyatt fiercely with the other. Her only tethers to the world. “He’ll come home?” she whispered, unsure but wanting to believe.

“Yes,” Wyatt said. “He’ll come home.”

He didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's case was taken from Still (5x22).


	14. Chapter 14

Lucy got the call at two in the morning. At first she thought—_Flynn_—but then she recognized the ringtone.

The precinct.

Wyatt’s phone was ringing too, on the other side of the bed, and she heard him groan, then paw for it, then pick up.

Lucy slowly woke up more, listening to Wyatt’s quiet conversation, her own breathing. The lack of warmth on her other side felt like a glacier, like an empty cavern of ice.

Wyatt sat up. “Body found in an alley.” He swung his legs off the bed and started to get up.

“Does Flynn know?”

“Denise didn’t say, but she didn’t ask where he was, so… I’m guessing she called and he picked up.”

Lucy sat up as well, rubbing at her eyes. “I’ll get dressed.”

When they arrived, Jiya was conducting her investigation while Rufus peered over her shoulder, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Lucy understood why the moment she got close. “Oh, God.”

“Never smelled burning flesh before?” Jess asked, walking up behind them and handing out some face masks. “Guess I shouldn’t have you over for dinner then.”

“What’ve we got?” Wyatt asked Jiya, ignoring Jess. He was always grumpy when he was woken up in the middle of the night, which, valid.

“She was already burning when a homeless guy found her,” Jiya said. “Called it in from a payphone.”

“I gave him a twenty for it,” Rufus said quietly. Lucy bumped his shoulder in thanks. The quarter or two it would cost to call from a payphone could’ve meant the difference between a life-saving meal or starving to someone like that.

“She’s been burned pretty much beyond recognition,” Jiya went on. “But from the bone structure, especially the hips, I’m guessing a woman. Here’s the thing—all her teeth were knocked out, and she was shot in the back of the head, one shot.”

“Execution style,” Wyatt said.

Jiya nodded.

Lucy peered into the barrel, squinting. “Look at that, on her jaw, it’s catching the light.”

Jiya peered in as well, then grabbed some tweezers. “I see it.”

She worked on the woman’s jaw, at last pulling it out, holding it up for Rufus to shine his flashlight on it. “It’s a dental screw. She must’ve had some kind of jaw injury.”

“Those things have serial numbers, right?” Lucy asked. “We could get her I.D. from that.”

Jiya bagged the screw. “I’ll get on it. Why don’t you guys head back to the precinct. Not much else to do here.”

Lucy drove to the precinct, Wyatt napping in the front passenger seat, his head pressed to the window. Neither of them had been asleep for long when they’d gotten the call. They’d been waiting up for Flynn, for him to come home.

“I’ll get you coffee,” she murmured when they stepped out of the elevator. “We can…” She paused.

Flynn was standing at his desk, looking over some paperwork.

“Jiya does quick work,” Flynn noted, and it took Lucy a moment to realize that he was talking to Denise, who was in her office but had the door open. “Dental screw in her jaw identified her as Melanie Rogers. She was a post-doc engineer in Rutgers.”

“What’s a Rutgers student doing in a bad part of downtown NYC?” Denise called back.

“I imagine once we find out we’ll know why she was killed.” Flynn set the papers down. “Her last call was to her half-sister, a loan officer in midtown. Call before that was to a D.C. number.”

“I’ll call the sister. You get the D.C. number.”

Lucy made herself walk across the floor, towards Flynn, Wyatt behind her. “Hi.” Her voice came out much softer than she’d planned.

Flynn didn’t look at her, but his face went a bit pale. Lucy was about to ask if it was her, but then she saw he was looking at his phone. “Denise, I got the D.C. number. It’s to Senator Cahill’s office.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Wyatt said quietly behind her.

“Flynn?” Lucy asked.

Flynn shoved his phone in his pocket and walked past her into Denise’s office, not even looking at her.

Lucy wondered if it would be bad form to throw up in the middle of the precinct.

* * *

Julie Rogers was, predictably, devastated. “We weren’t close growing up,” she said, in between blowing her nose into tissues. “But we got closer after Dad died. It was rough, when we were kids, you know? But Melanie—she was a good person. She wanted to change the world.”

“Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt your sister?” Flynn asked, keeping his tone gentle, trying not to betray the impatience he felt. Melanie knew Cahill, Melanie might have known something dangerous, something that led Cahill to order a hit on her—

Julie shook her head. “No. Everyone loved Melanie. But…” She pulled out her phone. “When you guys called me I… it woke me up and I saw I had a missed call from her. I was… I was out with friends and my phone died, my friends had to—to call an Uber for me—if I’d just charged my phone I would’ve gotten the call—”

She started crying again, and Flynn gently took the phone from her, hitting play on the voicemail.

“Something’s not right.” Melanie’s feet were echoing, and she sounded scared. Flynn could hear distant cars, also echoing…

“She’s in a parking garage,” Wyatt said, announcing what Flynn was thinking.

“Someone’s after me,” Melanie said. “Tell them, XT3—”

There was the sound of a gunshot and Flynn nearly dropped the phone in surprise.

“Holy shit,” Wyatt blurted out.

“Was that…?” Julie started crying all over again.

Lucy, who had been hovering in the doorway, walked over and put her arm around Julie. “Here, it’s okay.”

Flynn looked at Wyatt. “She recorded her own murder.”

* * *

Rufus parsed through the recording to try and see what else they could find out, but the only other thing they got was a noise right before the voicemail cut out—the sound of a zippo lighter.

“So we might be dealing with a psychopath,” Rufus theorized.

“Great.” Wyatt looked over at Flynn, who was going over Melanie’s schedule of her last day alive. Flynn had said only the bare minimum to Wyatt, and he wasn’t looking at, or speaking to, Lucy at all.

That was… look, Flynn might be angry and he might need some time to cool down, but Wyatt hadn’t known Flynn to ever be like _this_. This was—it was downright cruel, when Lucy was walking around looking like she was ready to literally throw herself at Flynn’s feet and beg for forgiveness.

But if Flynn wasn’t a cruel person, then why was he doing this?

“Melanie had dinner with Julie,” Flynn said. “Then she went to meet someone at the Standish Hotel, while Julie went out with friends.”

“If the last person she called before Julie was Cahill,” Wyatt said, “then it was probably him.”

“Isn’t Cahill married?” Rufus asked.

Given that Cahill had once knocked up a woman who had a long-distance boyfriend, Wyatt didn’t have high hopes that Cahill’s standards for relationships had gotten all that much better. “And no older married man has ever had an affair with a younger woman.”

“Go and talk to him,” Flynn said to Rufus.

Rufus stared at him. “Me?”

“Yes. Take Jess.”

“…you don’t want to take the lead on this?” Rufus clearly still didn’t get it.

Flynn gave him that look of doom that sent anyone with any kind of common sense running for the hills. “Go, Rufus.”

Rufus, unlike Napoleon, knew a losing battle when he saw one and scooted out the door.

“So,” Wyatt said, aiming for a casual tone and knowing that he was failing miserably. “Are you ever going to talk to Lucy or are you going to just give the cold shoulder until she bursts into tears in the middle of the precinct?”

Flynn paused. “She was in a parking structure. XT3… she was trying to read off a license plate number. Probably someone who was following her.”

“Garcia.”

Flynn looked up. “What do you want from me, Wyatt? I pointed a _gun _at her. How could I possibly speak to her after that? After I put her in danger like that?”

“That’s why you’re not talking to her!?” Wyatt could’ve smacked him.

“If I’d been any kind of—of decent person I would’ve lowered that gun the moment she stood in the way—”

“You were suffering some kind of breakdown, Flynn—”

“—that does not mean I wasn’t in control of—”

“—you had the man who killed your child—”

“—and now Cahill is involved—”

“—she’d forgive you literally anything how can you—”

“—and that means I’m not safe and that means I have to keep a distance—”

“—you self-sacrificing idiotic son of a bitch—”

“Boys.”

Wyatt jumped a mile and looked over Flynn’s shoulder to see Denise standing in the doorway.

“We’re going to run an APB on that partial license plate, I presume?” she asked, which made Wyatt terrified of how much she had overheard.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said at once, while Flynn glared very hard at a spot on the wall.

Denise cocked an eyebrow and then left. Flynn gathered up his papers, gave Wyatt a warning look, and then left too.

Goddammit.

* * *

Rufus had never met Cahill in person, despite secretly investigating the guy for months, so he felt he kept a pretty good poker face on, all things considered. “Senator, we appreciate your cooperation, but we need you to be honest with us. If you were seeing Melanie…”

“I would never cheat on my wife,” Cahill replied, remarkably calmly for a man who’d been accused of such a thing. Usually when Rufus asked a suspect if he’d been cheating, the guy would yell (or, once, throw a paperweight, although fortunately he threw it at the wall and not Rufus’s head).

“Sir, I’m sure that’s true,” Jess said, sounding oddly amused—but then Jess found nearly everything amusing, Rufus suspected it was her total lack of self-preservation. “But you have to understand how it looks. The Standish Hotel is known as a place where men meet… certain types of women. Or certain types of men, if that’s how your tastes run.”

She sounded like she knew that Cahill’s tastes didn’t run that way. Going by the disgusted look on Cahill’s face, Rufus suspected the guy hated the very concept of the LGBT world.

And to think, Rufus had so admired the guy up until now.

“I understand,” Cahill said, after he’d gotten over his kneejerk reaction to gag, “but you see, the Standish Hotel is where I’m hosting a conference in a few days. Melanie was helping me with an important piece of legislation that I will be presenting there.” He paused, giving Jess a look that Rufus couldn’t quite decipher. It unsettled him. “Melanie was a great girl, but she’s young enough to be my daughter. I do draw the line somewhere. You’re also welcome to talk to my driver, Jack, he can vouch for my alibi—I was at a strategy session with my presidential campaign team last night. Jack has my entire schedule so he can answer any questions that you have.”

The meeting was clearly over. Jess nodded, then jerked her head at Rufus, and they headed out of the office.

“What do you think?” Rufus asked.

“I think,” Jess replied, sounding annoyed, “that he’s right. I know you’ve been doing your little detective work and so have I. If he’d wanted Melanie dead, I’d have known about it. And Jack’s been with him for a couple years, he’s loyal but not _that _loyal. I don’t think he’s Rittenhouse. If Cahill really killed someone I don’t think Jack would cover it up.”

“Cahill never kills anyone himself anyway. He hires Lockwood to do it.”

“And that’s why I’m telling you, if he’d hired someone, I would know.”

Rufus kept up with Jess as they walked down the hallway towards the stairs. “You got something you need to tell me, Jess?”

Jess shrugged. “Depends on how much you want to have to perjure yourself at a later date.”

Rufus blew out a slow breath. Fair enough. He hadn’t told her about Mason, for one thing. “So. If Cahill didn’t kill Melanie for learning too much, why was she killed?”

Jess looked thoughtful. “Maybe because she did learn too much, but not about a target of Cahill’s.”

“So it’s just a coincidence that—”

“No, I’m saying…” Jess opened the stairwell door for him. “What if Cahill’s the target?”

Oh.

Well, that would definitely make it interesting.

* * *

This was stupid.

This was so stupid.

People weren’t… these weren’t people anymore, they were just. A collection of materials, elements, worm food. Brain, blood, bones, it was all going back to the soil. The spirit, soul, whatever, was long gone.

So he didn’t really… he didn’t really come here. Except to clean up the graves, lay down some flowers. Keep it nice, because he knew that mattered to Flynn, and Flynn couldn’t bring himself to come here all the time to do it himself, so. He could talk to his sister—and did, more often than he’d like to admit—wherever the hell he happened to be.

Yeah, he talked to Lorena. And Gramps. Talking to God was, generally, kind of out of his range. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d prayed before Flynn was shot, holding Flynn’s hand in the hospital bed and begging like he’d never fucking begged before. But Gramps had been the one good thing in his life as a kid, the closest he’d ever gotten to a proper parent, and call him ridiculous for it but… he still wanted a relationship with Lorena, and talking to whatever part of her might be listening was the closest he’d ever get. She was his older sister, surely she’d have given him advice, a shoulder to cry on, a good whack upside the head when he needed it.

He was probably just talking to empty air, though.

But today, for some reason, with everything that was going on… Wyatt felt like he just had to come here. He had to stand in front of the graves. In front of the markers that said, at least as far as their bodies were concerned, this was the last resting place of his sister and his niece.

It was his therapist’s idea, honestly. “She’s dead,” Wyatt had said. “Why would I need to apologize to her?”

“When the dead die, we’re not mourning because of them,” his therapist had replied. “We’re mourning because of us. What we lost. Apologizing to Lorena won’t do anything for her, it’s true. But it’s clear to me that you need to do it for yourself.”

So. Here he was.

Wyatt laid down the flowers, arranged them nicely, and cleared his throat. “Hey, sis. Iris. Um. It’s me. You’re probably surprised to see me here. Talking to you guys.” He swallowed. “Uh. So. Here’s the thing. I’m… you probably already figured this out, but… I’m in love with Garcia. I’m in love with your husband, Lorena.”

He took a few steadying breaths, his hands shaking. It felt like his heart was shaking too. “And I am—I am so fucking sorry. I know you’re probably… from what Garcia’s told me you’re a good person and you probably wouldn’t blame me and I mean, if you were alive, I don’t think… y’know. I wouldn’t have been helping Garcia so maybe Jess and I could’ve fixed the marriage and I’d still be in love with her. Who knows, right? But… so, um, I think you’re okay with it. I think you want him to find love again. Because that’s what you want when you love someone—for them to be happy and feel loved. I didn’t… I didn’t get that, for a long time. With Jess. I was selfish. I made it all about me.”

Wyatt stuck his hands in his pockets. “So, uh, yeah. I hope it’s okay. I hope you don’t feel it’s a betrayal. Because I love you. Even though we never got to meet in person. And there are times when I really wish you were here, to tell me what to do, how to help him. Because I…”

His throat got choked up and tight, and he had to swallow a few times, breathing heavily through his nose. “I… I might’ve fucked up. He was going to—you know how he gets, he wants justice so badly, Lorena, I’ve never seen anyone so committed to preserving _justice_. And to hell with the law, okay, it’s justice that Cahill dies for what he did. I know we have laws for a reason and I know that we need to be the better people, it’s right, it’s good, I believe in that, but _God_ it’s not fucking fair that he lives while all the people—while you’re dead, while Iris is dead, it’s not fair and Garcia’s not _wrong_ for trying to make it even that way.

“But it would’ve… but it would’ve hurt him too, he would’ve gone to jail, or someone else in Rittenhouse would’ve gotten to him and… I couldn’t let that happen. But I don’t know if I did it right. Because now he’s barely talking to me or Lucy and I don’t know if it’s just the case or… fuck—I don’t know what to do.” He paused. “And I’m sorry for swearing in front of Iris. If she is listening.”

Okay, now he was officially insane.

“I just… I just wanted to say that I love him, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry that I never got to know you, either of you, and even though I never really did—I still love you. You’re still my family. And I’m always going to take care of him. I—I’m scared that I fucked it up but I’m going to keep trying. You don’t ever have to worry about him. He’s always gonna have me.”

Wyatt laid his hands on the graves, and took one last breath, feeling like something was being carefully lifted off his shoulders.

He really fucking hated how his therapist was right all the time.

* * *

Sometimes, Flynn hated when Jess was right about things.

He wasn’t willing to give into her theory that Cahill was the target, not until they found the car Melanie had seen—it was reported as stolen, and inside the trunk was a sniper rifle and blueprints for the Standish Hotel, where Cahill was going to give his conference speech. Looked like poor Melanie had been a little too smart and a little too observant for her own good.

Of course, that meant Denise had to pull Cahill in and offer the guy protection. Which was…

…it was something that happened. Yes. You could put it that way.

“I’m not going to give up my speech,” Cahill informed Denise, like she’d told him to give up his firstborn child.

…actually, he had done that, so maybe that wasn’t the best analogy.

“This is the one of the speeches that will prepare people for my presidential campaign,” Cahill went on. “This is a turning point in my career and I’m not going to give it up just because you suspect that someone is after me!”

“Could you at least let us look through your mail?” Denise offered. “Check to see if you’ve received any death threats that match the handwriting we found on the blueprints?”

“Fine.” Cahill waved his hand. “You’ll have to speak with my driver, Jack. He’s my personal assistant, he reads all my letters first.”

“As well as being your driver?” Flynn didn’t see why he had to sit in on this meeting at all, he reserved the right to be a bit sassy about it. “Sounds like a heavy workload.”

“I hire only the best,” Cahill replied.

Denise stood up. “Flynn will escort you out, Senator, I’ll contact Jack.”

Yeah, Flynn bet Cahill hired the best. The best assassins and criminals.

It was dangerous, deadly, even, but Flynn couldn’t resist as he walked Cahill to the elevator. “Dick Coonan certainly wasn’t the best. You could’ve done better on that hiring job.”

Cahill paused ever so slightly in his walk for a moment. “You’re a clever man, Detective Flynn. I didn’t think you knew.”

“Not until recently.”

Cahill looked up at him—Flynn had never been more pleased about his height advantage—and smiled, like a lazy shark. “Tell me, how well are you going to pursue this person, if they really are after me? I’m sure you’d like nothing better than to let them succeed in their goals. You must dream about it.”

Flynn pressed the button for the elevator and made sure that he was looking Cahill in the eye. “No. Because in my dreams, I’m the one who gets to pull the trigger.”

He smiled at Cahill as the elevator doors dinged open, and it wasn’t a shark smile, it was a wolf smile—and if you asked Flynn, well, he knew which predator was deadlier. “Have a great day, Senator.”

* * *

Lucy could hardly feel her legs as she walked up to the house.

It looked so different in the daytime.

She didn’t know exactly what she was going to accomplish by being here, she just knew that she had to—she had to _know_. She had to look him in the eye, and take in the measure of him. The measure of her father.

Was that what Hamlet had felt like, she wondered, when Horatio told him of his father’s ghost? Was this how Philippe had felt, upon learning his true parentage, that his imprisonment was “for the good of France,” that he was the twin of the heir to the throne?

Lucy knocked on the door, and nearly ran away out of pure shock when a younger man opened it, rather than Benjamin Cahill himself.

The man looked to be about Amy’s age. “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry.” Lucy forced herself to smile. “Is this Benjamin Cahill’s home? I hate to bother you but I was asked to drop some papers off for him, from Melanie…”

The young man looked a bit suspicious, but then behind him she heard, “Let her in, please.”

Lucy stepped inside, the door closing behind her, and she was briefly reminded of the car, of being stuck, trapped, like a coffin.

Cahill’s son (her brother, she had a younger brother, and judging from the look of him he wasn’t even someone she wanted to know) shrugged and went upstairs, and Cahill himself walked over. “How can I…” He paused.

Lucy looked him in the eye.

He was nothing like Dad. Like Henry Wallace. She missed Dad so much, especially right now, looking at the man who had given her life and yet was a poor substitute for the man who’d raised her. Cahill looked like a fat old buzzard, like a lion who had once fancied himself a mighty hunter.

Wordlessly, Cahill led her into his study. The same study where Flynn had almost killed him.

“I was going through some papers of my mother’s,” Lucy said quietly. “And I learned that you… that we have a connection.”

Cahill watched her closely. “And you’ve come to… to start a rapport?”

Was that hope she heard in his voice? Or dismissal? It didn’t matter. Either way, he was still the man who’d killed Flynn’s family. “I wanted to see you in person.”

Cahill nodded. “Well. I’m happy to answer any questions.”

“Do I have other family?”

Cahill looked thoughtful. “I was an only child. As were both my parents. My mother died some time ago. My father’s in a nursing home now. You have no other siblings, besides the one you just saw.”

“That you know of,” Lucy couldn’t resist pointing out.

Cahill seemed amused, perhaps oddly proud of her jab. “That I know of,” he conceded. “I would… appreciate it if you didn’t inform my wife about… this. It was before I met her, of course, but…”

“Of course.” Lucy found it hard to breathe when faced with his calm, with his nonchalance. “I… I’ll see myself out.”

“You don’t want coffee or anything?”

“No, I’m all right.”

Cahill tilted his head at her. “I am proud of your many accomplishments, Lucy.”

Lucy wasn’t sure where her courage came from—perhaps she had been spending too much time with Flynn. Or, rather, just the right amount of time. “You can keep your pride. I don’t want it.”

Exiting out of that house felt like coming up for air after swimming in the cold dark waters of the bay. She drove off quickly, only to realize once she’d done so that she wasn’t sure where to go.

She called Mason's number before she even realized she was planning on it. "—and now I don't know what to do."

"Well," Mason replied, "if you're on a whole 'meet your family' kick, you could always go and visit other new relatives of yours."

Cahill had said he had a father, in a nursing home. It would be an easy enough thing to get those records. She’d gotten much more difficult information in the course of her novel research. And with Flynn still not talking to her… maybe it would be best if she stayed away from the precinct for a little bit.

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to—"

"My dear, I don't know too much about the Cahill family. But I think, from the bottom of my heart, that it would be _useful _for you to visit Ethan."

He hung up before Lucy could ask what that odd stress in his voice meant.

Ethan Cahill was put up in one of the nicer nursing homes, a top-notch care facility right next to a park. Lucy couldn’t fault Benjamin Cahill this much, at least. He seemed willing to spend money on his family.

“And who might I ask is visiting?” the receptionist asked.

Lucy didn’t want to give her real name. She didn’t want Cahill knowing she had been there. “Judith. Campbell.” She’d admired that woman so much growing up. “I’m his granddaughter. His daughter’s daughter.”

She accompanied this with a winning smile, and the receptionist bought it.

Lucy wasn’t sure what to expect. Another pillar of ice like his son? Someone even more cruel and malicious? A bitter old man?

Instead she found a quiet, mellow looking man in a wheelchair, sitting in front of a window, watching the park.

“Mr. Cahill?” Lucy said. “Ethan?”

He turned to look at her. “Yes?”

“I’m…” Lucy double-checked to make sure the nurse had left. “I’m so sorry to bother you. My name’s Lucy.”

“Lucy.”

“Yes.” Lucy walked over and sat next to him, on the available chair. “I… I recently learned I’m your granddaughter.”

Ethan turned more fully, gazing at her. “Are you now.”

Lucy nodded.

He peered at her. “If you are, and you’re allergic to peaches, I’m probably to blame.”

Lucy laughed, startled. “Ah, no, no allergy there. Um. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have dropped in like this—”

She started to stand up, but Ethan stopped her with a hand on her wrist. His grip was rather strong. “What’s your last name?”

Lucy sat slowly back down. “Preston?”

Ethan nodded, like it all made sense now. “Benjamin came to me. He was in college. Said that… he had made a mistake. But that he wanted to make things right—but the girl wouldn’t marry him. I told him he couldn’t force her and she had to make her own choices.” Ethan sighed. “He didn’t appreciate me for that. I think he thought I would… storm over and convince the poor young woman. Her name was Carol Preston.”

Lucy nodded. “That’s my mother.”

Ethan gave a wry, twisted smile, one that gave Lucy a start. She’d seen herself making that smile, in photos, usually when Amy tried to take one and Lucy wasn’t in the mood. “Benjamin never quite forgave me. After that we were… more distant.”

“Did you love him?” Lucy asked. “After he—he did something like that?”

Ethan considered. “I think I will always love my son. But like him, that’s another question altogether.”

Lucy found herself laughing again. Ethan seemed pleased. “I’m glad he didn’t help raise you. You wouldn’t be quite so delightful if he had.”

“You barely know me.”

“I know your laugh, and that’s delight enough.”

Lucy smiled. “Were you such a charmer when you were younger? All the ladies falling at your feet?”

To her surprise, Ethan winced as if in pain. “Not quite.”

Lucy looked out over the park. “I… I wonder, lately. If we can ever do awful things that… that make the people who love us stop doing it. If there’s a line where once it’s crossed… they can’t follow you.”

“Did you do something?”

It was an odd relief, to talk to someone who was so wholly uninvolved. Who hadn’t been there for any of it. “I… I was… led to believe that someone had killed my sister. And this person was trying to kill me, too. So I—defended myself. And in doing so I…” Lucy looked down at her hands. “I killed her. I didn’t—I’d never felt that rage before. It was… vengeance. I can’t say it was anything else. But then—but then someone I—he tried to take his vengeance and I stopped him, and I keep thinking how unfair it was for me to do that when I…”

Ethan took her hand. “I’ve done things in my life that I am… ashamed of, and I’ve done things that I was ashamed of at the time that I now know I shouldn’t have been. If you know what it feels like to do something like that, I think it’s only natural you would want to spare someone else that knowledge, and that experience.”

Lucy looked into his face.

“I fought in wars,” Ethan admitted. “And I know what it feels like—and you’ll never get the sound of it out of your head.”

“It never goes away?” Lucy whispered.

“It fades. And it only visits sometimes. Like all bad things, like all trauma, like all grief.”

“How can I say that I’m any better than the people I fight against?” Lucy asked. “How could you excuse it to yourself?”

“I was a pawn sent to kill,” Ethan corrected her. “You… you are nothing like my son.”

Lucy looked away and she heard him wheeze out a laugh. “You know what he is.”

“I know what he’s done. I know more than he’d like me to know. And if you’re coming to me like a scared rabbit then you know, too. It’s a terrible thing, to find out your father is a man like that. And a terrible thing to realize that’s the man you raised.” Ethan sounded incredibly bitter.

“It’s not your fault—”

“Of course it is.” Ethan shook his head. “I wonder, if I had been more of myself, instead of sticking to the status quo, and forcing him to stick to the status quo, if my fear hadn’t leeched onto him, would he be so desperate for power?”

“What were you scared of?”

Ethan looked at her and gave a rueful smile. His eyes were very warm. “It wasn’t the ladies I was interested in charming.”

Lucy felt something in her chest loosen up. “I try to be charming to… everyone.”

Ethan laughed, and now he was the one sounding startled. “Well then, there are some stories I could tell you, about the clubs I went to and the times I had.” He paused. “The plague, when it came.”

Lucy could taste the fear in his voice and wondered what that must’ve been like—a closeted, married gay man, terrified that everyone would know his secret not just because of a misjudged dalliance or gossip, but because his body was destroying itself. Because he would be hit with an illness that straight people were calling _Biblical_.

“I want you to tell me,” she whispered, clutching his hand. “I want to know you. But I’m not sure… you’ll want to know me.” _With all that I’ve done_.

Ethan looked at her for another moment, then took her chin in his free hand. “But I do.”

Lucy, to her utter embarrassment, found her eyes getting wet.

* * *

It took them for-fucking-ever to go through all of the damn letters that Cahill got.

Flynn supposed that all politicians got these kinds of threats, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Cahill got a few more than most, and if it wasn’t justified.

They were trying to find a letter that matched the handwriting on the blueprints, see if they could get a handle on this person. People like this tended to announce their intentions, or at least their hatred.

“Got anything?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn paused.

“No,” he said, tucking the letter into his jacket pocket. He stood up. “I’m going to the restroom, you want me to grab you anything on the way back?”

“I’m good.” Wyatt looked at his phone. “Lucy said she’s going to be out all afternoon. Plenty of time for you to figure out how to talk to her.”

Flynn ignored him as he headed out. He had a lighter in his desk. It would be only a couple of minutes to set the letter on fire over the toilet, drop the ashes in. No trace. No proof. The killer would be able to get to Cahill…

He paused, his hand on the desk.

Lucy had begged him not to pull that trigger. She’d put herself in between him and Cahill, and he knew she had no love for the man, biological connection or no.

And if he did this… Melanie would never get justice. Or her sister. The killer wasn’t just after Cahill. He had killed Melanie, an innocent, and left her sister grieving.

Lorena had believed in justice. True justice. Lucy believed in that too. Flynn believed in speaking for the dead, when their voices had been stolen—as Denise had said, once.

He turned around and walked into Denise’s office. “I think I have a hit.”

Denise took the letter, examining it as she answered her phone. “Captain Christopher.”

“You really are remarkable, you know that?” Wyatt murmured.

Flynn turned around. Wyatt had, for once, walked up quietly and was standing behind him.

Flynn looked Wyatt up and down. “You saw.”

Wyatt gave him one of those _aw shucks, me _smiles, the puppy ones that made him look like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’ll pursue this letter,” Denise said, hanging up. “But that was CSU. They found residue on the gym bag that suggests our guy was a mechanic. I’m having Rufus and Jess canvas the area.” She nodded at them. “Good work, you two.”

Flynn nodded, then looked at Wyatt.

He had a look on his face, like he was proud of Flynn, like Flynn really had done something remarkable, and Flynn wasn’t sure he deserved that look, not at all.

* * *

A mechanic by the name of McManus had gotten laid off from his job three weeks ago, and had bought a gun matching the one in the car trunk from a store just up the street from the car garage. The kicker? In his letter he had talked about his son, who had died three weeks ago, apparently from hanging himself. Odd how his suicide had come right before his scheduled meeting with a reporter, and that he’d been working as an intern for Senator Cahill.

McManus had been living off the grid, but Rufus managed to track him—through whatever spooky tech skills Rufus possessed—to a motel where he’d been staying.

Denise dispatched Flynn and Wyatt.

Flynn leaned against one side of the door as Wyatt knocked. “McManus?”

There was no answer.

Wyatt slid his master key from the management into the lock, then nodded at Flynn.

Flynn shouldered it open, covering Wyatt as Wyatt entered, gun raised. “McManus!”

There was nobody there.

Wyatt started looking around. “Hey, Flynn, look at this.” He picked up the dust ruffle of the bed, revealing… oh, shit, a vest bomb.

Flynn started backing out of the room. “I’m going to call it in.”

He stepped out into the hallway, just as a man carrying a grocery bag emerged from the stairwell.

They both froze, as the man realized Flynn was a cop, and Flynn realized he recognized the man.

“Police!” Flynn yelled, bringing his gun up. He had a clear shot, McManus was in his sights, he could—

—or he could not, he could let someone suffering as he had get their vengeance, he could let someone else get their justice, take down Cahill like he deserved he—

McManus disappeared back into the stairwell and Flynn fired, hitting the wall.

Wyatt dashed out of the room. “What—”

“I missed.” They both knew Flynn never missed. “He’s getting away, c’mon.”

Wyatt didn’t say anything, just did as he was told, chased McManus, got him down, cuffed him, did his job as a police officer.

And Flynn…

He felt torn in two, felt like two separate people, the person who wanted to do this right and the person who wanted Cahill dead, no matter how or what it took. He wanted to pull that trigger himself, he wanted to let someone, anyone else do it, he wanted Cahill in jail for life.

He didn’t know.

“Are you up for this?” Wyatt asked, nodding towards the interrogation room. “Because if you’re not…”

Flynn shook his head. “I’m… I can manage.” He paused. “I’m not remarkable.”

Wyatt stared at him like Flynn was insane. “Of course you are.”

“I almost let him get away.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I had him in my sights.”

“Garcia.” Wyatt planted himself in front of him. “Anyone else I know, in your shoes, would have let him get away. Would have burned that letter. No hesitation. The fact that you thought it doesn’t matter—you caught that thought and you corrected it. I never said you were perfect. But you are still a good man.”

Did Wyatt have any idea how much he made Flynn’s chest ache? “I’ll try and make it quick.”

“I’ll be watching.”

* * *

Rufus knocked on Denise’s door. “Hey, you got a minute?”

Denise waved him in. “Only a minute.”

“Right.” Rufus cleared his throat. “So I’ve been doing some digging with this case, as you know, vetting all of Cahill’s people from his driver on up. And I… I noticed an odd possible connection.”

He handed over the paperwork he’d been doing on Vulcan Simmons and the SuperPAC. Sure, he’d done it long before this case, but Denise didn’t have to know that.

“I think that we should put some pressure on Simmons, look into him again. See what we can dig up.”

Denise flipped through the papers, glancing up at him. “I’m connecting some dots, Rufus, and I’m not liking the picture I’m seeing. Are you suggesting…”

“I’m suggesting we look into it. For Flynn, who is someone we both care about.”

Denise put the papers in a drawer, then locked the drawer. “This doesn’t leave my office.”

Rufus nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Outside, sitting at her desk, Jess flipped her pen over and over between her fingers.

She’d have to tell Cahill about Simmons being made.

Fuck.

* * *

McManus was staring at the floor as Flynn entered. Wyatt watched quietly, his arms folded.

He’d meant what he said. He would’ve burned the letter, in Flynn’s shoes.

“You know why you’re here.” Flynn’s tone was much gentler than the one he usually used. “And I understand.”

“You couldn’t possibly.” McManus snorted derisively, still not looking Flynn in the eye.

“I know that you were desperate. Angry. You’d lost the most important thing in the world to you. It’s understandable that sometimes we let our anger get the best of us.”

“You sound like a shrink.”

“I’ve been going to a shrink.”

“Whoop-de-fucking-do for you.”

Wyatt could see Flynn’s back moving as he took a deep breath. “Listen. I have been in your shoes. And let me tell you, right now, we have evidence to convict you. But if you confess, cooperate, we can work that sentence down. The jury will understand why you tried to do it.”

“Why I tried to do it.” McManus snorted. “I’m not confessing to something I didn’t do. And if you’re really trying to protect that monster, then you’re no better than he is.”

Wyatt didn’t need to see Flynn’s face to know he’d flinched. Wyatt almost stormed in there, shook McManus, demanded to know if the man had any _idea_ what sort of person Flynn was, what Flynn had gone through, and was giving up, to uphold the law and bring justice to a young woman.

“You killed Melanie Rogers,” Flynn said, and now his voice was sharp. “I cannot tell you how many times I’ve laid in bed, thinking about how I could kill the man who took my family from me. But you know what I never did? I never even considered killing an innocent person to do it.”

Flynn might not believe it, but Wyatt knew, Lucy had never been in danger when she was in front of that gun. And Lucy had known it, too.

“I didn’t kill her,” McManus snarled.

“Evidence says you did.”

“Then go ahead. Lock me up. I’ll go the way of my son, you’ll see.” McManus looked up to meet Flynn’s gaze. “Think they’ll hang me or do it another way? Sometimes they like variety.”

Flynn stood up. “When your conscience finds a voice, give me a call.”

He slammed the interrogation door shut on his way out, and now Wyatt was the one flinching.

* * *

Lucy nodded into the phone as she paced back and forth, even though she knew Wyatt couldn’t see her. “All right. Thanks Wyatt, I appreciate it.” She hung up.

“Well?” Amy said.

They’d been discussing Ethan, and all of the afternoon’s events, when Wyatt had called to say they got their guy.

“Apparently they found their guy. He had a bomb vest he was going to wear to the event tonight, commit suicide and take Cahill with him.” Lucy sat down. Something didn’t feel right about this.

“But you disagree.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You have that look on your face that says you disagree.”

Lucy set her phone down and waved her hands. “Whoever killed Melanie knew what they were doing. They knocked out all her teeth. They stopped for a smoke break after she was killed, does that sound like a grieving, desperate father to you? And how did this guy go from being smart enough to know how to dispose of a body erasing its identity, but then just leave that gym bag in the car with the blueprints and the gun? It makes no sense, for someone to be so smart in some ways and then so dumb in others.”

“Then be suspicious. Talk to Flynn or Wyatt. If you think it’s a setup…”

“I could just be… wrong.” Lucy shrugged. “I don’t like the idea that this man’s going to jail when… when if you ask me he’s probably right, and his son probably was murdered.”

“There’s a saying,” Amy replied, “that if nine men agree on something, it’s the job of the tenth man to disagree. Be that tenth man.”

Lucy picked up the phone, then set it down again. “What if Flynn doesn’t want to talk to me?”

“If nothing else, he’s always trusted your instincts with this.”

Lucy dialed Flynn’s number.

“Hello?”

“It’s too easy,” Lucy said quickly. She outlined her doubts. “I would talk to Cahill, I think that McManus was set up so that we’d let our guard down, I think that the real killer is still out there.”

“I’m on it.” Flynn paused. “Lucy…”

Her breath caught.

“I’ll—we’ll talk, tomorrow, all right?”

Oh. Well. It could’ve been better. Could’ve been worse, too. “Okay.”

Flynn hung up, and she could feel the ghost of words unsaid hanging in the air between them.

* * *

Amy had gotten good at knowing what Jess’s moods were. How Jess would cover up her hurt with cheer and sarcasm, how she was a quieter, steadier person than most others gave her credit for. Amy would have died before she admitted it, but she and Lucy ended up having similar tastes in their romantic partners (or at least their crushes, since God forbid Lucy get so far as to make Flynn her romantic partner)—Amy could see a lot of similarities in Jess and Flynn.

Right now, though, she couldn’t tell what Jess’s mood was at all, and that concerned her.

“I’m not breaking up with you,” Jess had said earlier. “This is not about us. But I’ve got some serious stuff I need to talk to you about tonight.”

Amy waited on the couch in their apartment, her leg bouncing a little with nerves, too anxious to pace but still full of restless energy, scrolling aimlessly through social media on her phone, trying and failing to read three books, trying and failing to watch two different television shows, until Jess entered.

She sat up. “Hey.”

“Hey, baby.” Jess looked… tired in a way that Amy hadn’t seen before. Amy couldn’t read her, couldn’t tell what Jess’s mood was. Was she angry? Sad? Frustrated?

Jess walked over and sat next to her. “I… I’m sorry. First of all. Um. To put this on you, and also that I’ve been keeping stuff from you. You’ve been really patient with all of it.”

“You told me that there were things you were doing that you couldn’t talk to me about and I respect that,” Amy replied, still feeling out of her depth. “You’re a police officer. It happens. I’m sure the same thing happens with lawyers or when people get jury duty.”

Jess cleared her throat. “Right, yeah, but… not like this.”

She turned, taking Amy’s hands in hers, squeezing them. Amy got the impression that it was more to reassure Jess herself than for Amy’s benefit. “The thing is, months and months ago, right before Flynn got shot—Rufus and I got a lead. The only lead. We found out who the third cop was in the kidnapping ring. The cop that sent Lockwood and used the ransom money, the one who—the one who hired Coonan to kill Lorena.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?” Amy’s voice came out as a whisper.

Jess shook her head. “We had no proof. No documentation. Only a single photo and the word of a random bartender that this guy used to hang out with McAllister. Rufus… I think he’s been working on getting proof, his own way. And I’ve been doing things my own way.”

Amy’s heart sank. She knew Jess, she knew the kinds of things Jess would do. “What did you get yourself into.”

“I’m fine.” Jess squeezed her hands again. “I… I went to Cahill… it's him. The senator. Benjamin Cahill.”

“The one you've been protecting on this case?”

“Yeah. Funny, right?” Jess's voice held no humor.

Amy felt her stomach drop away. “I knew—fuck, I knew our politicians were awful but this…”

“I know.” Jess nodded, her eyes steady on Amy’s face. “I know. I made him a deal, for Flynn’s life. And it’s been working so far. But I can’t hold him forever. So I’ve been trying to get information, evidence, _proof_. But I can’t. I could turn witness but that won’t be enough. This isn’t just one man anymore, Amy, he’s got allies. A whole organization, they call themselves Rittenhouse.”

“…the clock maker guy from the Revolutionary War? Lucy used him in a book, one of the Drummond mysteries, there was this Freemason treasure and one of the clues was in a clock that Rittenhouse had made…”

“Babe. Focus.”

“I wouldn’t exactly name my evil secret organization after the guy, is what I’m saying,” Amy concluded.

“Well, they’re all old white men, you can’t expect brains.” Jess smiled bitterly at her joke. “Point is, they’ve got teams of lawyers and lots of people on their side, I don’t think the confessions of one rogue cop is going to be enough.”

“You need a confession from Cahill,” Amy concluded.

“Ideally, sure, but—this isn’t _A Few Good Men_,” Jess replied. “We can’t rely on that.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Jess inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Because I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to find a way to get evidence. And when I do, it’s probably going to come to light, during the court case, that… that Cahill is Lucy’s father.”

Amy stared. She could feel her eyes going so wide it hurt, but she couldn’t seem to get herself to stop. “What?”

“Cahill told me that I was to keep an eye on Lucy during cases,” Jess explained. “Keep her safe. I never understood it. He wouldn’t explain, either. But then I recognized his class ring—from Stanford, it’s the same one you have, from your mom. And I realized that if Lucy was his daughter, that would explain why he cared.”

“Mason admitted that Mom told him she’d had an affair, while Dad was away, before they got married,” Amy confessed. “I… I never asked who it was. That didn’t matter to me. I think Lucy wanted Mason to tell her, she likes knowing all the information that way. But who cares, right? Dad, our dad, Henry, he raised Lucy. He was her father, not this sperm donor, so I didn’t care. Lucy’s still my sister, it didn’t change anything.”

“But the press will see it differently,” Jess said, her voice hushed.

Amy pulled her hands away to rub at her eyes. “Does Lucy know?”

“I don’t know. But Mason… Mason knows about Rittenhouse.”

Amy’s head shot up. “Jess.” _No_. “Does he—does he know about—” _Does he know what they did to Flynn?_

“I think so. If he didn’t before, I’m sure he knows now.” Jess rubbed her back, between her shoulder blades. “Honey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Amy had never been cheated on by a romantic partner. She’d never had anyone keep a secret from her that she didn’t know about. Other than Mom’s affair, she had never found a skeleton in the family closet. Until now, she had never understood what it felt like to be betrayed.

But Mason…

Amy listed into Jess’s side, and let Jess hold her. That was why she hadn’t been able to guess Jess’s mood. How did you tell that to someone you loved? How did you reveal so many secrets, so many layers of betrayal?

Some time passed. Amy didn’t know how much. She just knew it grew darker in the room, and that when she finished crying, she felt bone-tired. “You said that Rufus knows?”

“Yes. I don’t think he knows what I’m doing, exactly, just like I don’t know what he’s doing, exactly. But we’re aware that we’re each… tackling this in our own way.”

Amy nodded against Jess’s chest, then sat up. “I need to call him.”

Jess didn’t say anything, she just let Amy go.

Rufus picked up on the third ring. “Hey, Amy, everything good?”

“Jess told me.”

She heard Rufus inhale sharply. “Ah.”

“And she said that—that Connor knows about Rittenhouse and Cahill. That he’s known about them for a while.”

Silence.

“I’m too angry to talk to him,” Amy confessed. “I can’t even—I can’t even hit him, Rufus, I’m so angry I’m just crying. And I’m too close, I’ll—but you, you, he loves you, Rufus, you have to talk to him. We need a confession to take Cahill down. Please. Connor can get it from him, I know he can.”

“I think you’re overestimating Connor’s bravery,” Rufus said. His voice was quiet, sharp, and Amy knew that Rufus now also understood betrayal. That now, the two of them had both just grown up, and become old, and let go of a young, innocent part of them that they hadn’t even known they still had.

“You suspected.”

“I found some… things, yes.”

“Talk to him. Please. You can convince him.”

The silence stretched out even longer this time.

“I’ll try,” Rufus said at last, and that was all that Amy knew she could hope for.

* * *

These functions, politicians giving speeches, rich people patting themselves on the back, were odious enough without Cahill being a part of it.

Flynn stood stiffly with Wyatt, watching as Cahill left the function, still smiling and shaking hands. “You see?” he said as he passed. “I was fine.”

Flynn didn’t say anything, clenching his jaw instead to keep the words inside. Wyatt snorted, unable to fully hide his emotions.

A reporter grabbed Cahill, asking for a couple of quick questions, and Cahill turned aside. Flynn watched as Cahill’s driver pulled his car up and got out, standing near the trunk.

Was it just Flynn’s paranoia? Or did the guy look a bit shifty?

_You’ll have to speak with my driver, Jack. He’s my personal assistant, he reads all my letters first._

Jack, who had access to Cahill’s fan mail, who could easily pick a patsy from the letters he got. Jack, who knew Cahill’s schedule and was there for most of Cahill’s appointments. Jack, who if Flynn recalled from their research, was ex-military and would easily know how to make a bomb.

He started moving as if in a daze, his ears ringing, instinct taking over, no vendetta, no revenge, just the thought: _target is in danger._

Cahill was walking towards his car, but Jack wasn’t walking to open the door for him, he was walking away, out of the range of the blast—

Flynn dove, tackling Cahill to the ground. One, two, three, four, five heartbeats later, and the car exploded.

Cahill cried out, reporters screamed and snapped photos, Wyatt was yelling for Flynn, it was pandemonium.

“The driver!” Flynn yelled, and thank God, Wyatt heard it and took after the guy, tackling him.

Underneath him, Cahill was breathing heavily, stunned. Flynn staggered to his feet, then held out his hand for Cahill to grab.

Cahill took it with a baleful look at Flynn, yanking himself to his feet.

“I told you it wasn’t McManus,” Flynn said.

Cahill stared at him. Flynn didn’t bother to wait for a response, he just walked away.

* * *

Wyatt jogged up, watching as Flynn stormed away, his back a rigid line, stiffer than steel. He looked over at Cahill.

“You know that he knows what you did.”

Cahill looked over at him.

“To my sister,” Wyatt clarified. “And my niece. He knows it was you.” He stepped in closer, until he was sure Cahill could feel the heat of his breath, the heat of his rage. “If it was me who realized? I wouldn’t have done what he just did. I would’ve let you burn.”

He stepped back. “But I guess that’s why I’m not the hero here, huh?”

Cahill’s stare was half hatred, half bafflement, and Wyatt could feel it on his back as he walked away, walked up to Flynn, and put a hand on Flynn’s shoulder. He knew Flynn wouldn’t break down, or cave, not in public, but he felt Flynn’s body trembling under his palm all the same.

* * *

Mason raised his eyebrows when he opened the door to find Rufus standing there. “It’s rather late, Rufus, is everything all right?”

Rufus strode inside. “No, Connor, everything is not all right.”

Mason took in Rufus’ harsh breathing, his tight face, the way his hands were clenching and unclenching just to have something to do. “Alcohol? Coffee? Water?”

“Nothing, thanks.” A strange look crossed Rufus’ face. “I don’t want anything from you.”

Ah. Well. That certainly signaled something. “Has something happened that I should know about?”

Rufus took a deep breath in through his nose. He was very carefully not looking at Mason, but rather at a spot on the wall. “Were you ever going to tell me? Or Lucy or Amy? About Cahill, about what you know? Did it ever… occur to you to do anything to stop what he was doing? Or were you okay with people getting hurt? Including people you knew?”

“If you think I’m okay with that sort of thing then you don’t know me—”

“No, Connor.” Rufus looked him dead in the eye, now. “I don’t know you. That’s exactly right.”

Mason hadn’t felt this sick in… years. Not since he’d been drowning in debt and desperate for a way out, certain his career was over. He’d done a stupid thing, then, had let Carol talk him into a deal with the Devil’s board of trustees. He didn’t want to do a stupid thing now and lose his family. “I… I’m not all right with it, no. But I didn’t know what to do to stop it. I hoped… I didn’t know, about Lorena and Iris, I didn’t know. If I had… I don’t know, what I would’ve done, but I didn’t, until… and then it was all too late and Lucy was involved and I couldn’t hit the brakes on any of it. I’m not one of them, Rufus. I’m not a part of the ‘in-crowd’. I’m just a fool who let them help me out of a tight financial spot and now I know too much.”

Rufus had a look on his face that seemed to say _a likely story_, but he wasn’t jumping down Mason’s throat, either. “And what about now. What about _now_, Connor.”

“I haven’t been idle.” Mason nodded towards the news, which was playing on the television on mute. “I’m sure you heard about—or maybe you didn’t, driving over here—Flynn’s been heroic again.”

“Flynn’s always heroic, it’s an annoying flaw of his. Like being a morning person.” Rufus glanced over at the television long enough to see the headline. He gave a low whistle. “He really saved that sonofabitch.”

“Yes. From my assassin.”

Rufus whipped his head around. “What!?”

“I paid the driver an exorbitant sum of money to kill Cahill. Unfortunately Flynn is a noble person, despite it all, and has apparently figured it out and stopped the man.”

“He’ll give you up, you know that, don’t you!?” Rufus started to pace, clutching at his head. “Oh my God, Connor, you idiot, he’s going to give you up in prison and Cahill will know and he’ll kill you!”

“The man already wanted to do it, he knew what kind of person his employer was, I simply gave him that extra little push. And I covered up my tracks, they’ll never trace me.”

“How are you so fucking brilliant and also so fucking stupid,” Rufus muttered, his voice having jumped an octave. “You know what? You know what?” He stopped pacing. “You know what this is, Connor?”

“Enlighten me.”

“This is the coward’s way out.” Rufus’ eyes blazed with conviction. “You hiring an assassin to kill the bad guy? Cowardly. If you really believed in doing what was right, you would find a way to expose him. To get him arrested and tried. That’s what Lorena was trying to do. That’s what she _died _for. And she didn’t die, her daughter didn’t die, so that a rich person like you could pay their problems away by hiring a killer to eliminate him.”

Mason felt like Rufus had struck him in the chest. “…I see. If that’s how you think of me…”

“No. No, don’t you do that.” Rufus marched up to him. “You are more than that. You are more than what you’ve let yourself be. Don’t you retreat.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?”

“I suggest you be the man I know you can be, the man who’s been taking a chance on me and mentoring me, the man you _want _to be.” Rufus paused. “Even if you don’t think you really can be him. I know you can.”

All he wanted was to be a man that Rufus, that Lucy and Amy, could be proud to know. Proud to call family. “And what would that man do?”

Rufus didn’t soften, but cooled slightly, red-hot metal being tempered. “You go to Cahill. And you get him to confess.”

* * *

Jess strode into the dark, empty car garage. Her orders were simple—and expected. She’d known what would happen the moment she turned the information over to Cahill.

She hadn’t necessarily expected that she’d be the one pulling the trigger, but whatever. It wasn’t like she was here to kill an innocent lamb.

_If you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world stays the same._

Maybe so. But what if you killed multiple killers? Multiple movers of evil? Didn’t that tip the scales more towards the side of good?

Enemies could be lurking behind every car, every corner, in every shadow. Simmons wasn’t stupid. He had to suspect that something was up. That his time was short.

Or maybe not. He didn’t know that Denise was going to start putting the pressure on him. Who was to say that he had any idea that Cahill was considering him a liability?

Then again—not much got past Vulcan Simmons. It couldn’t, not if he wanted to get to the top of the heap the way that he had. Clawing your way with blood and dirt under your fingernails, that didn’t happen because you were bad at guessing when your friends would become foes.

“Detective.”

Jess had to give Simmons one thing, just one thing in his favor: he wasn’t afraid of a little confrontation. “Evening, sir. Cahill sent me over with a message.”

“Did he now?” Simmons seemed amused. “And what’s that?”

Jess gestured for them to head to the garage’s office.

Simmons didn’t turn his back on her—he wasn’t quite that stupid—but her gesture made him follow the movement of her hand. Humans naturally followed movement, it was how their eyes were designed. Simmons followed it, and it gave Jess the second she needed to pull her gun out and fire.

She hit him three times, right in the chest. He was a big guy, she doubted just one bullet would completely take him down.

She was getting used to the look of surprise on people’s faces when they died.

After Simmons fell to the ground, Jess used her phone flashlight to find the spent shell casings, putting them back into her pocket. Then she checked Simmons pulse. When she was sure there was nothing, she got out the tweezers.

Ugh. She hated digging bullets out, but hey, anything to keep ballistics from figuring out who and how for this.

After she’d made sure that none of her DNA was anywhere, Jess dialed Cahill’s number. “It’s done.”

She didn’t know how all of this was going to end, but she did know, the noose was tightening—for all of them.

* * *

When Jiya got to the precinct that morning, internal affairs was there.

“Um…” She walked over to Rufus and Jess, who were frowning. “What’s going on?”

A quick glance confirmed that Flynn was in the break room, brewing coffee. Wyatt and Lucy were hovering a few feet away playing ‘go and talk to him’ chicken with each other.

“Donovan, that prick from IA, he’s taking over some new case,” Jess said.

“Nobody’ll tell us anything, but Denise is angry about it,” Rufus added.

“Of course Denise is angry about it, she’s captain and this guy’s swooping in—”

“No.” Rufus cut Jiya off. “This is something more.”

Jiya concentrated on the movements of their mouths. She wasn’t the best lip reader, she was out of practice, but she liked to think she was pretty good. “I think they’re arguing about Flynn.”

Jess got an odd look on her face.

Jiya grabbed Rufus’s coffee. “You had any of this yet?”

“No.”

“Good.” Jiya walked up to the captain’s office door and waltzed right in.

“—literally his backup piece, Christopher, you can’t—”

“Twice now a serial killer has broken into Flynn’s apartment, you’re telling me that it’s completely out of the realm of possibility that someone broke in, stole his backup piece, and used it? And why would they leave the backup piece after taking the shell casings and the bullets? They got sloppy in the last two seconds of the job?”

Denise and Donovan both froze as they noticed Jiya there. Jiya held up Rufus’s coffee mug. “Your coffee, ma’am. Like you said.”

She set the coffee down on the desk.

Denise didn’t drink coffee. Only tea.

“…thank you, Jiya,” Denise said. She picked up the coffee and took a sip, her expression never changing.

Jiya retreated, moving just slowly enough to hear Donovan say, “He was a loose cannon before, Christopher—”

She closed the door, and the sounds were cut off.

“Well?” Jess hissed.

“They think Flynn killed someone,” Jiya whispered. “With his backup piece.”

“Flynn’s not that sloppy,” Rufus said. “Who died?”

“Who do you think!?” Jess whispered. “Vulcan Simmons, it was all over the radio this morning.”

Simmons. Jiya locked eyes with Rufus. The drug dealer that was connected to Rittenhouse, the one who’d been making money to fund Cahill’s campaign. Now he was dead—and Cahill was framing Flynn for it. Two birds with one stone.

Maybe Denise could convince Donovan that Flynn wasn’t involved, but with the personal connection that Donovan had clearly already discovered, that Simmons had once been a suspect in the deaths of Lorena and Iris, that the last time Flynn had gone up against Simmons he’d nearly put the man through a wall—

Jiya walked into the break room. “Flynn.”

Flynn looked up.

Donovan walked out of the office. Jiya swallowed. “You need to get out of here, now. They’re framing you for Simmons’ death.”

Flynn set down his coffee cup and looked over at Lucy and Wyatt, who were still hovering.

“Vulcan Simmons,” Jiya hissed, as Jess got up and interrupted Donovan, sidetracking him. “You know, the guy you nearly killed that one time? He’s dead and your gun was found at the scene.”

“I have my gun.”

“Your backup.”

“…my backup’s in the safe at home.”

“You sure about that? You’d bet your freedom on that? Because IA’s gunning for you right now.”

Flynn looked up over her shoulder and clearly saw Donovan. He looked at Wyatt and Lucy again. He opened his mouth. Closed it.

Jiya grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the elevators. “We don’t have time, now, now, now, c’mon.”

“Hey!” Donovan yelled as Jiya shoved Flynn into the elevators, hitting the button.

“Run fast,” she hissed.

The doors slid shut and Jiya turned around to see Donovan running up to her, red faced.

She smiled sweetly. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just sent Flynn to get donuts—did you want one too?”

The look of fury on Donovan’s face was priceless.

* * *

Wyatt waited near the swings, trying not to pace back and forth with impatience. It was bad enough that he was an adult man just standing there at a children’s playground in a park. If he looked like he was nervous and upset while he was doing it, he was sure he’d have some mom or nanny calling the cops on him.

The message he’d gotten on his phone had come from a payphone, so it couldn’t be traced. It had been Flynn, saying only two words: “Iris’s spot.”

Wyatt knew where that was. If anyone else had heard it they might’ve thought Flynn meant Iris’s grave, or somewhere else like that. But Wyatt… Wyatt knew.

This was the playground where Flynn had taken Iris to play. The swings had been her favorite. He’d shown Wyatt, a few months after their deaths, the two of them walking around, giving the playground itself a wide berth and sort of scooting around the edge, as if they’d expected Lorena and Iris’s ghosts to be there.

After that, they would walk around it sometimes, or Flynn would come by himself and sit on a bench and think. Wyatt couldn’t even remember the official name of the park, although there was a sign for it somewhere. He just knew that it was Iris’s park.

Dammit, why had that idiot provoked Cahill? Why was Cahill acting now? Deciding that with his presidential campaign underway that it wasn’t safe anymore? Why did Flynn have to tell Cahill what he knew, why—fuck, why hadn’t he just let Flynn fire that night, why hadn’t they let Jack kill him—

Wyatt turned around again, searching, trying to avoid looking like he was searching—and turned just in time for a figure in a dark gray hoodie to walk up to him.

He would recognize that profile anywhere. Wyatt’s entire body slumped. “Thank fuck.”

He didn’t know if he reached for Flynn, or if Flynn reached for him, but the next moment they were hugging so tightly, Wyatt felt like his ribs were being compressed. He buried his face in Flynn’s shoulder and breathed him in. “We’ll clear your name,” he whispered. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Wyatt.” Flynn pulled back, one of his arms staying around Wyatt’s back but his other and coming up grasp the back of Wyatt’s neck. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

Flynn lowered his face just enough so that his eyes were boring into Wyatt’s, a dark stormy sea, green-gray eldritch fire. “You and Lucy need to flee the city. And you need to not help me. You need to go.”

“What!?” Wyatt couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You can’t be serious. Flynn. No.”

Flynn shook him slightly. “Wyatt, Rittenhouse is after me and they’re not going to stop there. They’ll come after you, too. You were Lorena’s brother, you’ve been my partner this whole time.”

“Cahill is Lucy’s father, he won’t kill her.”

“Because killing someone is the only way to hurt them.” Flynn put his hands on Wyatt’s shoulder. “Wyatt, please. I can’t let either of you get hurt.”

“And we’re supposed to just abandon you? Leave you here? Without us, without help, you’ll die, Flynn. Cahill will kill you. You know the truth about him and you’re too dangerous for him to let you stick around. I’m not going to leave you here to die!”

“I’m not worth it, Wyatt, for God’s sake!” Flynn hissed.

Wyatt shoved at him. “Like hell you’re not, you don’t get to say that!”

Flynn pulled him in close again, lowering his voice, and Wyatt realized he was starting to draw attention. “Wyatt.” Flynn pressed their foreheads together, his hand at the back of Wyatt’s head. “Wyatt, I heard you. I know. I heard you, when I was in the hospital, I heard you praying for me.”

Wyatt swallowed, his blood going cold and then hot again all in a dizzying rush. He’d told Flynn once—that if he was ever going to stoop to praying to a God he wasn’t sure about, it would take something of monumental importance. He would have to be truly desperate.

He’d never imagined that Flynn could hear him. That Flynn would realize what Wyatt was doing. That Wyatt was finally giving in and hanging all his last hopes on faith, because he couldn’t take the chance, because he had to appeal to every possible avenue to try and get Flynn through the other side.

“I know what it means,” Flynn told him, his voice soft. His fingers carded through Wyatt’s hair. “I know how… important and rare that is. And I appreciate it. More than I think you’ll ever understand. But I’m not worth that dedication. I’m not worth your life. Or Lucy’s.”

“Lucy will never let you make her leave. I know that you’re angry with her—”

“I can’t give her hope. I was angry with her, yes, but I… I realized that I couldn’t… if she thinks that I still don’t want anything to do with her then she’ll leave more easily.”

“Then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought,” Wyatt snapped, his temper finally fraying that last little bit. “You’re a self-sacrificing moron.” He shoved at Flynn’s chest, putting a foot of distance between them. “Lucy’s in love with you and you pretending to be all disappointed in her isn’t going to stop her from staying here and helping you, any more than it would stop me.”

“It should—!”

“No!” He was beyond emotion, anger, prudence, patience, all of it. He was just flying on desperation. “Lucy’s not leaving you and I’m not leaving you either, Garcia, we love you, I love you, and you can’t make me abandon you!”

Flynn gaped at him, his jaw going slack, his eyes widening, and unlike so many times, so many arguments, where Wyatt had found himself taking a moment to realize what he had said, he was painfully aware of every word coming out of his mouth. It was all out in the open now, and he couldn’t take it back. He found himself, oddly, not caring if Flynn hated him, if Flynn didn’t want to be with him, if he was shut out. That didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that Flynn understood: Wyatt wasn’t abandoning him.

“I’m in love with you,” he repeated, “you bastard.”

The last word was hardly out of his mouth and Flynn was launching forward, kissing him.

Wyatt stumbled, grabbed onto Flynn’s face, diving into the most desperate kiss of his life. Flynn dug his fingers into Wyatt’s back, his tongue slick and filthy in Wyatt’s mouth, and Wyatt wanted to crawl inside him, press and press and press until he had melded himself to Flynn and there was no separating them.

It hit him suddenly that he was kissing—that meant that Flynn—even if he never said it, he didn’t have to. Wyatt knew. Flynn loved him, loved him back, just the same, and Wyatt’s heart would’ve been soaring if it wasn’t for the continued terror.

“You ridiculous, loyal idiot,” Flynn murmured at last, their mouths making an obscene noise as he broke the kiss.

“Call me whatever the fuck you like,” Wyatt replied, his voice sounding like it was scraped over sandpaper. “But don’t you dare try and make me leave you.”

Flynn stroked through his hair, his arm a firm, warm band around Wyatt’s lower back, and Wyatt wanted to just close his eyes and melt. Flynn’s eyes looked like the deep ocean.

“All right,” he said. “All right.”

Wyatt slumped his head down against Flynn’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around Flynn’s shoulders, his face buried in Flynn’s soft hoodie.

They would figure this out. They would. None of them were leaving each other.

* * *

Lucy read Flynn’s letter again, or rather the cobbled-together various drafts of his attempted letters. She curled up on the couch, running her fingers over the pages, feeling the indents of the words, picturing him writing them down.

She couldn’t let Cahill win. She couldn’t let Rittenhouse finish what they’d started. Even if she wasn’t in love with Flynn, even if she wasn’t—it was the right thing to do. She had to stop them from hurting others. Who knew how many other families had been destroyed, how many other lives had been taken or ruined, by these greedy people in their pursuit of money and power?

But if she was being honest, it wasn’t because… or, well, it was because it was the right thing to do, but that took a backset to her own personal reasons. Her… vendetta.

That man dared to call himself her father, dared to lay any claim to her, after all that he’d done? And he dared to try and hurt Flynn, to blackmail Mason? No. It wouldn’t stand. Lucy was going to do whatever it took to make him pay.

Mason. Mason had told her to visit her grandfather. To meet Ethan. That it might be helpful. She had thought that meant that just in a personal way, about shining a light on Benjamin Cahill and her family history. But what if that wasn’t it? Talking to Ethan had caused Lucy to love him. She was glad to have Ethan, a silver lining to the dark cloud of revelation, but he hadn’t exactly given her information about her father that had made anything easier.

But maybe…

Maybe she had been looking at it the wrong way.

Maybe, Mason had told her to find her grandfather not for herself, but because… you didn’t just build an empire out of nowhere. Rich people didn’t actually come from nothing. The rich white men of the world had money from their fathers, from their family, to help them get started. Sometimes millions. Cahill had started out as a cop and had gotten his starting money from ransoming off kidnapped mobsters, but he couldn’t have climbed through the ranks and done the hop skip and a jump over to senator without at least some help.

What if Ethan Cahill knew more about his son’s business affairs than most? What if he knew about the less savory things Benjamin had done to get where he was today?

…would he be willing to testify? Or at least would he have some documents, something to get them the arrests they needed?

Lucy carefully folded the papers and put them back into the top drawer of her dresser, ignoring the stupid, romantic urge to kiss them like a heroine in a historical romance film. She was going back to Ethan.

“Judith,” the receptionist said, smiling. “You’re back.”

“I had the afternoon off, so I thought I’d stop by and see Gramps again, surprise him,” Lucy replied, keeping her tone light and indulging.

Ethan’s eyebrows rose as she was shown into his room. “Judy. I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

_I didn’t think you’d be back at all _was the implication. And that was fair. Although Lucy cared about her grandfather, deeply, when she’d left she’d had no intention of visiting him again for a while. It wouldn’t be safe. Just because she’d put in a fake name didn’t mean that the receptionist or someone else would mention “your lovely niece” to Benjamin Cahill the next time he stopped by.

“I… I had a question,” Lucy said, closing the door behind her and coming to sit with him. “More like an offer.”

Ethan gave her a stern look that Lucy found herself recognizing—she’d seen herself giving that look in photographs from paparazzi over the years. “My dear. Why do I get the feeling you’re wading into danger?”

“Because you might not have known me for long,” Lucy replied, “but I think the two of us are made up of the same stuff.”

Ethan gave her a small smile. “What is it you want?”

“You told me, earlier, about… about the sacrifices you made,” Lucy said. “And about how your son doesn’t really… stop by often. But you’re not a stupid man, Grandpa. I know that much. And you weren’t always here, and you weren’t always this estranged from your son.”

Maybe she was calling him Grandpa to help sweeten him up. Maybe she was using this person, this good person, who liked her so much and wanted to be in her life. But Flynn’s life was on the line. She would do worse. She _had _done worse. She’d killed a woman for her sister, had stabbed and stabbed until after Emma was already dead, because she’d thought that Emma had killed Amy.

Buttering up her grandfather to save Flynn was really nothing compared to that, wasn’t it?

Ethan raised an eyebrow at her. “You want to know if I have… information that could help you.”

Lucy swallowed, unsure if she was upset or grateful at being found out so quickly. “How much do you know about… Flynn?”

“I know what you told me earlier. I know that he’s a thorn in my son’s side and has been a concern for a while now.”

“I love him.” It felt odd, and yet right, to say those words so baldly, so plainly. “And Benjamin is going after him. He’s on the run, and I don’t know—I don’t know if he’ll ever—I need to help him. I need to take down Rittenhouse. You know what happens to people who cross Benjamin’s path, you know what happens—and it’s only a matter of time—because Flynn won’t run, he doesn’t run, he stands his ground and he fights even when he shouldn’t—”

Ethan laid his hand over hers and she could sense a weight settling around his shoulders. “You want me to get you… information.”

“I know you must have some. Benjamin didn’t carve out his empire alone. You were his father, you knew people in Washington, you had to have helped him.” Lucy turned her hand over, squeezing Ethan’s. “Please. If we can arrest them…”

“I don’t have anything on me,” Ethan interrupted her. “But I know where their records are kept. I taught my son the value of a paper trail. You can’t trust technology in so many ways. You always need paper. I taught him how to hide it.”

“So you’ll tell me where it is? How to find it?”

“He’ll know I talked to you.”

“But we’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you safe.” That’s what she did, she got her family to safety, she fought Emma twice, killed her, she did whatever it took, even betraying Flynn—she would keep Ethan safe too, she wouldn’t lose her grandfather now that she’d found him.

Ethan gave a small sigh. “You are terribly and dangerously persuasive, my dear.”

He sounded a bit like Mason in that moment. “I know.”

On her way to the precinct, she called Flynn. He didn’t answer—even if he’d wanted to, and she wasn’t sure that he did, he couldn’t. There was a trace on his phone, she knew it, the police all over the damn city were looking for him, like idiots.

_Detective Garcia Flynn. Leave your number. Make it brief._

“Garcia.” Lucy exhaled slowly, tried to keep her voice even. “I know you can’t answer me right now, and that’s okay. I’m not sure that you even want to. But I wanted you to know… I know things are scary right now, for all of us, and the future’s uncertain, but I needed you to know that whatever happens—I love you. That hasn’t changed. And I think maybe you need to hear me say that, after what happened. That I didn’t do what I did because—I did it because I love you and I know that no matter how angry you were in that moment and no matter how understandable that anger was, that you would’ve regretted it later. That this isn’t really how you want to do things. You don’t… you don’t want to be someone who lets their anger use them, you use your anger, not the other way around. It’s one of the reasons why…”

She tried to swallow and found herself choked up. “I can’t say it enough times, it just keeps pouring out of me, I love you. I love you. Please be careful. Please be safe. I’m—I’ve got a lead, here, I’m trying—I’m trying to make it right so you can come home.” She blinked a few times. She couldn’t cry while she was driving. “I want you to come home. I love you.”

Lucy hung up before she found herself just repeating the same phrases over and over again. _I love you, please come home. I love you, please come home._

When she pulled up to the precinct it was like an entire army was stationed out front. She grimaced, then forced a smooth, impassive face on as she got out of the car. Carol had drilled various expressions into her when it had become clear that while most authors could get away with anonymity in their daily lives, being a bestseller _and _award-winner _and _a gorgeous person (and Lucy had doubted many things about herself but her appearance was never one of them) meant Lucy was not going to be afforded that luxury.

“You have to look like you’re walking on skulls,” Mom had told her. “Each step crushes them. People will part before you like the Red Sea, Lucy. It’s all in how you’re thinking.”

Lucy got out of the car, walked into the precinct, and pictured herself crushing skulls with each step.

Denise was in the middle of the bullpen, giving orders, not in her office for once. “Lucy.” She paused, then shooed away some other cops. “If you’re looking for Wyatt…”

“I don’t know where he is,” Lucy replied. “But I’m guessing you have an idea.”

“He vanished a few hours go,” Denise admitted. “I suspect he’s with Flynn.”

If anyone could figure out where Flynn was, after so long living in each other’s pockets, it was Wyatt. “So you’re out for him too, now. You’re out for both of them.”

“I have to follow the evidence, Lucy. It’s better that I’m in charge of this than some other bullheaded people I could mention.”

That was fair, but… “What if I told you that I could lead you to some information, documents, real paper documents, that would prove the existence of Cahill’s crimes? That would prove he’s not the man he says he is? What if I had a witness who was willing to testify once we have those documents in hand?”

Denise looked at her for a long moment. “Rufus and I were about to move on an investigation against Cahill through Vulcan Simmons, but with him dead, our lead burned up. So I’d say that you were the hero of the hour. But only if you’re right and this isn’t some wild goose chase you’ve concocted to try and get me away from Flynn.”

“It’s not. But we have to move quickly, before the documents are destroyed. Cahill’s back is to the wall, he won’t let evidence remain there for long and once he moves it, I don’t know where it’ll go.”

“And how did you learn all of this?” Denise asked.

Lucy took a deep breath, and for the third time, she admitted the truth about her family. “I’m Benjamin Cahill’s daughter.”

* * *

Wyatt checked them into a dingy pay-by-the-hour motel on the outskirts of the city. If you asked Flynn, it wasn’t nearly far enough away if they had a chance of getting out of this clean, but it was the compromise they’d come up with. Wyatt wanted Flynn to flee, and Flynn wanted to stay and see this out, get the bastards even if that meant it led to mutually assured destruction.

He knew, even if Wyatt with his optimistic heart didn’t want to admit it, that there was only one way this was going to end. And Flynn prayed like hell, like he hadn’t since Lorena and Iris had died, that he would be the only one dying. That Wyatt would be spared. Lucy he had a bit more hope for—she was Cahill’s daughter, after all. He didn’t want Wyatt dead, and he didn’t want Lucy to lose two people she loved.

“I’m going to get some food,” Wyatt said, when they finished surveying the space. “You stay here, you can’t be seen.”

“Fair enough.” Flynn pulled out his phone, even though he knew that he couldn’t make any calls on it. He could be being tracked.

To his distinct lack of surprise, there were several missed calls on it. And a few voicemails. From Rufus, from Denise, from Jiya, even one from Jess. But only the last one interested him.

“I’ll be back soon,” Wyatt promised.

Flynn pulled him in, and it felt so natural to do it, to just tug on Wyatt and to have Wyatt follow, to wrap an arm around him and kiss him, breathe him in. Who could have known that it was truly such a small step for them to go from close friends to lovers? Had they really been lovers, in every way except the physical, this entire time? With only that final step differentiating?

Wyatt fell into him, kissing back, soft and adoring, and God, Flynn didn’t deserve this devotion. He never would. “Go on.”

Wyatt nodded and stepped out of the room.

Flynn sat down on the bed and listened to Lucy’s voicemail.

Then he listened to it again. And again. And again.

What the hell had he done to deserve her? He would’ve given just about anything to have her in front of him so that he could kiss her, hold her, tell her that everything he had was hers. He wasn’t angry anymore, he was only trying to protect her. When you loved someone you let them go, if that was what they needed.

And he couldn’t even call her back to tell her all of that without it sending up a flare to his location. He couldn’t reassure her one last time that he loved her.

Fuck.

Flynn stuffed his phone back into his pocket and got up to splash some water on his face. This was a mess, a mess that was probably at least partially his fault. He should’ve come home that night, he should’ve held Lucy in his arms, he should’ve told Wyatt how he felt sooner instead of waiting until Wyatt literally blurted it out because there was a manhunt for him, he should’ve…

The door to the motel clicked open.

Flynn paused. Quietly, he reached for a towel and dried off his face. Wyatt would’ve announced his presence. That only meant…

He ducked just as someone came swinging for him, then rose up with a harsh uppercut, sending the man flying backwards. Flynn dove forward, slamming the guy back into the wall, fist cocking back to hit his temple—and heard the click of a gun. No, two guns.

“None of that, Detective,” Lockwood said.

Flynn paused, turning.

Lockwood had two other guys with him. Four against one—not the best odds in general, but especially not when Lockwood and one of the guys had a gun cocked and pointed at him and Flynn’s was still strapped to his hip. Forget any fun tricks at the wild west resort, there was no way he’d be able to get a round off before they pumped him full of lead.

“Well, well, well.” Lockwood put his gun away but the fourth guy pulled his out, ensuring two guns were still on Flynn at all times. Flynn supposed he could be a little proud of that. They must’ve realized he was good enough to potentially wrestle a gun away from just one guy, so they kept two out. “I have to say, Flynn, you running away like a rabbit and finding a hole to hide in was not how I pictured this going down. Doesn’t really seem like your style.”

“What can I say?” Flynn replied. “I’m full of surprises.”

He’d been hoping for Wyatt to come back quickly, since he was terrified of Wyatt getting attacked by Lockwood or picked up by the police for aiding Flynn (he didn’t know what Wyatt had told Denise but knowing Wyatt it was probably a shaky alibi at best), but now he wanted Wyatt to take a very, very long time in returning. The only thing that could possibly make any of this worse was Wyatt walking in right now and becoming a toy for Lockwood to play with, to make Flynn hurt. Flynn didn’t care what they did to him, but he’d lose what was left of his mind if Lockwood so much as thought about touching a hair on Wyatt’s head.

Lockwood walked up to him, and Flynn had to strain not to punch the guy. “I want to end you just like this,” Lockwood said. “You’ve been kept alive for far too long. Cahill’s getting soft.”

“Are you really going to monologue at me?” Flynn asked. What? If he was going to die either way, at least he was dying getting to run his mouth a bit.

Lockwood surprised him by pistol whipping him. Flynn reeled back, stars dancing in his vision. Okay, he had not seen that coming. Point to Lockwood.

Two of the guys grabbed his arms while Lockwood grabbed the cheap wooden desk chair and sat it in the middle of the room. Flynn tried to keep his breathing even and his pulse down as he was shoved down into the chair. He couldn’t glance at the door or window, couldn’t give Lockwood any hint that he might not be here alone. If Lockwood realized Wyatt was with him…

Lockwood produced a small white pill, which he held up in front of Flynn’s face. “Swallow it.”

“Or what?” Flynn asked.

“Or we do this the hard way,” Lockwood replied. “Cahill’s got his request but I’ll play the five point system with you if you give me a reason to.”

The ‘five point system’ was just one of the many names for when a person shot you in various places of increasing pain, usually starting with the kneecaps.

Part of Flynn—the big part of him—wanted to challenge Lockwood to fucking try it, but he had to be smart about this. “Fine.”

Lockwood watched carefully as Flynn put the pill in his mouth and swallowed. “So, what was that?” he asked.

“You’ll see.” Lockwood nodded at one of his men, who passed him…

“Really? You couldn’t spring for the good stuff? You got me cheap whiskey. This is the equivalent of my last meal and this is what you’re passing out. Real low.”

Lockwood gave him a decidedly unimpressed look. The two men behind Flynn still each had a hand on his shoulder, a silent reminder that Flynn had better not try and get up.

Fuck, where was Wyatt? Was he okay? Had someone else gotten him, another Rittenhouse goon that Flynn didn’t know about? Or was he right outside, planning some stupidly heroic entrance?

Flynn let his head fall a little, his eyes becoming unfocused. “There you are,” Lockwood said, sounding pleased. “That little baby works fast. Especially if you haven’t eaten in a bit. Gets right into your bloodstream.”

He grabbed Flynn’s chin and held it fast, forcing the bottle to Flynn’s lips and tipping the alcohol down his throat. Flynn had two options: swallow, or choke.

And boy, the kind of dark, bitter jokes he could’ve made about that.

He’d swallowed what felt like about half the bottle, his throat burning, when Lockwood pulled back. “That should do it.” He set the bottle down.

God… fuck, dammit. He didn’t have to let his head or his vision do anything at this point, they were going nice and fuzzy on their own. No food and then strong alcohol, no matter how cheap it was, was not a good combination for staying alert.

But the fourth guy had put his gun away, and that was the ticket. Flynn tried to keep his muscles relaxed, tried not to tense up and give himself away, even as his head swam and his limbs felt annoyingly loose and unconnected.

Lockwood put on some gloves, then took Flynn’s gun off his hip and placed it in Flynn’s hand, curling Flynn’s fingers around it. “Come on then, nice and easy…”

Staging a suicide? Yeah, real original, Cahill.

Flynn kicked Lockwood square in the chest, using the chair for leverage, and sent Lockwood crashing back into the fourth man.

The two others holding him were startled and Flynn whipped his gun up, firing twice, hitting one in the head and the other in the shoulder. Ooh, fuck, messy, not what he’d planned, but whatever.

“You son of a bitch,” Lockwood snarled as Flynn spit out the pill he’d hidden under his tongue.

Fuck. He wasn’t faking the drunk part, though. The room spun a little. The guy he’d shot in the shoulder grabbed the half-full bottle and smashed it against Flynn’s head and he whipped his gun up again, hitting the guy in the chest this time, sending him to the floor—but the room was spinning more now, fuck his head was throbbing, he couldn’t—

“All right,” Lockwood said, raising his gun. “I’ve had enough—”

Two shots went off, one hitting the fourth man, the other hitting Lockwood.

Flynn stared at the confused look on Lockwood’s face as the two bodies slumped to the ground.

“Sorry,” Jess said, standing in the doorway. “Traffic was a bitch.”

* * *

Wyatt glared up at Denise, his arms folded. “I’m not telling you or anyone else where he is.”

“Your loyalty is admirable, Wyatt, but I will remind you that as long as Flynn’s out there, he’s a target for Rittenhouse. Taking him into custody—”

“—would make him easier to hit!” Wyatt protested. “Keynes got to him while Flynn was in custody and that was just one guy with an inferiority complex, what happens when it’s professional assassins hired by some of the most powerful people in the city? In the state?”

“If you don’t talk,” Denise said, slowly, “they’re going to throw you into a cell and throw away the key.”

Wyatt jutted his chin up. “I don’t care if you court martial me. Do whatever the hell you want. I’m not snitching on Flynn.”

* * *

This whole time, she’d been wondering if she should strike, if she was waiting too long, if she was going to miss her chance and was letting more evils be committed that she could’ve stopped.

Then she’d gotten the call from Cahill. “We’ve found Flynn. Lockwood’ll take care of him, we need you to make sure the cops don’t sniff Flynn out, too.”

“That wasn’t our deal,” Jess had replied. “Flynn was supposed to be safe. That’s why I work for you.”

“Be grateful we’re not going after your ex-husband,” Cahill had told her. “Or your girlfriend.”

A wave of anger so cold it burned had cycled through her. “Amy is your daughter’s sister. You wouldn’t do that to her.”

“I’m already killing my daughter’s boyfriend. Don’t underestimate what I would do to keep what I’ve earned. Make sure this goes smoothly.”

Jess had made her voice complacent. “Yes, sir.”

Following Lockwood without him knowing was a bitch, and she’d nearly been too late. But Flynn was a fighter, thank God, and she was able to get to the motel room in the nick of time.

Or, well, maybe not. Flynn looked—and smelled—drunk as fuck, and there was blood oozing from a cut on his head.

“Jess?” he slurred.

“Live and in person,” Jess said, tucking her gun away.

“Wyatt…” Flynn pitched forward.

It took every ounce of strength in her to catch Flynn and keep him from sending them both to the floor. She was never skipping leg day at the gym again. “Whoa, hey, buddy, you gotta stay awake on me. That head wound—you might have a concussion, you can’t pass out.”

“Where’s…”

“Wyatt’s fine, Denise picked him up, the idiot.” Jess managed to Flynn up on his feet again, then slung his arm over her shoulders. “C’mon, c’mon, my car’s just down this way, you can make it.”

Flynn stumbled along with her, his head lolling, until Jess buckled him into the passenger seat of her car. Then she crawled underneath, and popped the hood, and the trunk, felt around the tires—checking everywhere to see if there was a tracking device.

Two of them. Shit, she should’ve known. She got into the car and dialed Cahill. “Don’t make a noise,” she told Flynn.

Flynn rested his head against the window and promptly passed out. Jesus Christ. Jess grabbed his phone out of his pocket and hit record, holding it up to her phone.

“It’s done,” Jess said. “Lockwood asked me to call.”

“Excellent. Make sure this doesn’t get back to me.”

“Do you want us to do anything with Flynn’s body?”

“Just leave it. A grieving cop who couldn’t let go of his loss, the world’s seen it all before. Make sure all fingerprints are cleaned, we only want his.”

“Of course, sir. Let me know if you need anything else.” Jess ended the call and the recording.

Okay. First, she had to drive a bit. Then she had to switch to another car. Might as well just add grand theft auto to her tab at this point. Then, Hamptons. Amy’d mentioned Mason had a place there, Jess could break in, get Flynn settled, and call one of those fancy concierge doctors to come over and look at him, the kind who would take care of everything and not breathe a word so long as you had enough cash on hand.

She’d figure out the ‘cash’ part when she got to it.

Jess looked over at Flynn. He looked exhausted and beat to hell. She sighed. “It isn’t the end of the road yet, buddy.”

She turned the car on and backed out of the parking space. There was a very narrow window of opportunity for getting Flynn—and herself—out of here, and she had no intention of letting it close before she’d gotten them through.

* * *

Mason took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. “Are you sure?”

“Trust me,” Rufus replied, double checking everything. “I’m trusting you, even though you’ve kept a hell of a lot from us and frankly I’m not sure I should be giving you any more of my faith but here we are.”

“Here we are.” Mason held still as Rufus tested something. “Rufus. They will search me for a wire.”

“And they won’t find one.” Rufus looked him in the eye. “Ever since we met, you’ve been telling me that I’m something special. That you see a lot of potential in me to become someone great. That I should trust in myself. Well, this is it, okay? This is that moment. I’m not going to send you in there just to get screwed, no matter how pissed at you I might be. Just play your part, and this will record.”

Mason looked into Rufus’s unyielding gaze. He did have faith in Rufus. He saw the potential for so much in the young man—because he was still young, and still had so much time, and so much he could do, even if Mason knew that at times Rufus felt incredibly old.

“All right.”

Rufus nodded. “Go get ‘em tiger.”

Mason fixed him with a stern look. “Do not ever say that to me again.”

“Noted.”

Mason left Rufus and Jiya’s apartment and walked back down to his car. He had no idea if his apartment, or his car, or anything else of his was bugged. It was better to be safe than sorry, and he dared the CIA, the NSA, or anyone else to try and bug Rufus Carlin’s apartment without Rufus knowing about it.

If he’d said that he wasn’t shaking a little, and sweating a little, as he drove over, he’d have been lying. His stomach was a bundle of nerves as he parked and went up to the upstate house that Benjamin Cahill called home.

But he had been a coward for long enough, and if he wasn’t willing to stick his neck out a bit for the people he loved, then could it really be said that he loved them?

Cahill seemed surprised when he opened the door, as well he should be—but if it was an act, then it was a good one. “Mason. Come in, come in. What brings you to my doorstep this evening?”

“I won’t beat around the bush, Cahill. I want you to call off the war dogs.”

Cahill wandered into his study, the one with the large glass doors facing out over the back patio, and Mason followed. Few people knew, one of them being Mason, that the glass was actually bulletproof. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mason. Scotch?”

“Ah, no thank you, I’ve got to drive back tonight.”

Cahill shrugged and poured himself two fingers. “Why on earth would I call them back? Assuming that I could, which I can’t.”

“Lucy,” Mason said. “Cahill, you care about her. I know you do.”

“Not as much as I could have.” Cahill looked up at him sharply. “If Carol hadn’t kept her from me.”

“I know.” Mason tried to soothe. “And I’m sure you regret all that time wasted. Carol always felt her reasons were best. But doesn’t that mean that now you can… do things to make up for that lost time?” He took a few steps towards Cahill. “She’s in love with him, Benjamin. Surely there’s a way to resolve this where he gets to live.”

A man in a black suit entered the room, and Cahill nodded at him. “It’s a… an interesting night, let’s put it that way, so I have security with me. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all, I was surprised you didn’t frisk me the moment I got inside.”

Mason tried to keep himself breathing easy as the security guard patted him down and ran a small wand over him, checking for bugs.

“Clean,” the man pronounced, and Mason had to work to keep the relief off his face and out of his limbs. Score one for Rufus, then. The man was truly a genius with tech, he should be building time machines or rockets, not chasing down third-rate criminals.

The security guard took up a post by the back door, and Mason focused on Cahill again. “There are other ways to deal with this. Flynn is a hero after the Keynes-Whitmore case. He’s well-known because of the whole… muse, thing, for Lucy’s books. It’s risking more than you’re gaining to kill him.”

“He won’t ever stop,” Cahill countered. “He’ll never stop trying to get me for that stupid woman’s death… and the _child_, my God, I still can’t believe that idiot Coonan killed the kid. That wasn’t my order and he should have waited. You’d think that the man would move on eventually but despite all of your claims that he’s with my daughter—who could do a lot better than him, by the way—he seems incapable of letting go. Now Lorena Flynn was a hell of a woman but she wasn’t worth this insanity of devotion.”

“And I’m sure your wife is?” Mason said, unable to stop himself.

Cahill snorted. “Charlotte is… she fulfills her duties well. Carol would’ve been a real partner. Someone to really… but she made her choices.”

“Yes. She did.” Mason tried not to sound too cutting in his tone.

“All of this is a moot point to be arguing over, anyway,” Cahill went on. He took a sip of his drink. “I got the call half an hour ago. My agents killed Flynn in the motel where he was hiding out. Staged it to look like a suicide.”

Mason’s stomach heaved traitorously and he nearly toppled over. No. Lucy—Lucy would— “You can’t be serious.”

“Have you ever known me to joke about something like this?” Cahill replied. He finished off his drink. “I suggest you go and speak with Lucy. She’ll need a shoulder to cry on.”

“Pity the shoulder can’t be yours.”

Cahill looked at him with narrowed eyes. Mason kept his face the picture of earnest sympathy. “Have a good evening, Mason. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

“I’m sure.” Mason smiled, then nodded at the security guard, and showed himself out.

He waited until he was a bit of a ways out, then found the nearest gas station and pulled over to throw up in the restroom.

Flynn was dead. Flynn was _dead_.

His phone rang. Rufus. “Hello?”

“I got it,” Rufus said. “You gotta love satellites. This should be enough, he just confessed to having Lorena and Iris killed on his orders, hiring Coonan, and trying to kill Flynn.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Mason replied, turning on the sink to rinse out his mouth. “He killed Flynn, Rufus. Lucy will never forgive me.”

“Yeah, about that. You know how you were paranoid that your place was bugged?”

“Yes?”

“I set up a couple bugs of my own, just in case, put some pings on your account. You’ve got an anti-burglar alarm set up with ADT that sends notifications about your electricity and water use at your house in the Hamptons.”

“Yes, in case of squatters, apparently it’s a thing where people break into rich people’s vacation homes and—Rufus what does my house in the Hamptons have to do with Flynn being murdered!?”

“And you’ve got an on-call concierge doctor down there, right?”

“Yes, I had a few too many wild cast parties, it was good to have him on retainer. Again, why—”

He could hear the smile in Rufus’s voice. “Well, I hate to tell you what your bill’s going to be like, but either you’ve got squatters with head wounds, or Flynn’s at your house recovering from a pretty nasty scrape up. You were just billed for treating a concussion and applying stitches and someone’s using a lot of your hot water.”

Mason couldn’t help himself—he literally whooped. “That cockroach bastard.”

He had no idea how he’d done it, but Flynn was _alive._

* * *

Cahill was seated for the interview, looking quietly pleased with himself. He was about to announce his campaign to run for president, who wouldn’t be feeling quietly pleased with themselves in his shoes? That final loose thread who had been a danger to him was gone. Mason was firmly in his pocket, so was Jessica Logan. Neither of them could speak out against him. There was no evidence, and unless Wyatt Logan wanted to go the same way as Flynn, he’d keep his head down.

“Cameras are rolling, senator,” one of the camera crew informed him.

The doors opened, and Lucy stepped through. There was fire in her eyes—he’d seen that fire in Carol’s eyes a few times, especially on the night she’d broken things off with him.

“Miss Preston, what a pleasant surprise.” Of course she was angry. Understandable. But also unavoidable. “To what do we owe the pleasure? We’re about to start an interview for the nightly news, you’re welcome to stay and watch.”

“Oh,” Lucy said, a smile curving up her lips that was nothing like Carol’s. “I intend to enjoy watching this very much.”

Before Cahill could ask what she meant, another person stepped up next to her.

Cahill leapt to his feet, even as his legs went numb. “No.”

Garcia Flynn smirked. “What can I say, I’m like a bad penny. Just keep turning up.”

He strode forward, and Cahill could see fresh bruises and stitches on his forehead, but he was alive, intact, not dead—Jessica Logan, she’d lied, and he’d bought it because he was so eager to have Flynn done with and to focus on his campaign, on this next step—

“Benjamin Cahill,” Flynn said, and behind him was Wyatt Logan, the two of them glaring at Cahill for all they were worth, Lucy’s eyes an inferno. “You are under arrest for the murder of Lorena and Iris Flynn and the attempted murder of, well, myself.” Flynn’s smirk slid away, and now there was nothing but righteous fury. “There are plenty of other charges, but let’s stick with those for now, shall we?”

Cahill was torn between glaring and showing his anger and trying to hide it, to play his part in front of all of these people, and he ended up spluttering a little. The cameras were still rolling. Flynn was still glaring.

There was nowhere to run.

Flynn made the cuffs tighter than strictly necessary as he put them on. “You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?” Cahill whispered.

“Trust me, Benjamin,” Flynn replied, “this isn’t _fun. _But also…” He yanked on the cuffs and Cahill winced. “…nothing gives me greater pleasure.”

He escorted Cahill out to the wild snapping of photos and the sound of the still-rolling cameras.

* * *

It was raining, so everyone sensible decided to skip visiting Grandma’s or Dad’s or whoever’s grave that evening.

Flynn had never claimed to be sensible.

He stood in front of the gravestones, in front of his wife and child, and for once, he was smiling. Grimly, but still. “We did it.”

He rested his hand on the top of Lorena’s stone. “I couldn’t have done it without Wyatt or Lucy. Or Jess. Or Mason. Or… any of them. It was a team effort.” He swallowed. “You would’ve liked all of them. Both of you.”

Flynn drew his hand away. “I don’t know if this gave you peace, or if you were already at peace long before this. I… this wasn’t about you, really. In the end. I think I can admit that now. It was about me. I needed justice. And I’m glad that I didn’t stop, and I’m glad that I didn’t give up. But I…”

He took a deep breath, felt his heart stutter in his chest, and closed his eyes. “I love you both. So much.” _His girls. _“I’ll never stop loving you. But I… I think I need to really say… goodbye. I have… I have two other people that I love, and I want to—I want to focus on them. I want to be with them.” He felt his eyes well up and he wiped at them with the back of his hand. “Nobody could ever—you’re irreplaceable. _Moje lijepe djevojke_. And I will see you both again someday.”

Perhaps now he could remember them without it hurting. He could visit them without it being a painful journey. It could be something soft, instead, something that was sweet, and not bitter.

Flynn squared his shoulders. It was time to go home.

* * *

Lucy paced back and forth. “You’re sure he’s coming. You said that last time and he didn’t come.”

From his position on the couch, Wyatt sighed. “Yes, Lucy. He’s not angry with you. He was… yeah, he was at first, at both of us, but that—he was trying to keep us at arm’s length to protect us.”

“Fat lot of good that did.” She hadn’t seen Flynn except to arrest Cahill. To keep it from being found out that he was alive, Jess had kept him at Mason’s and called Denise on the landline, explaining everything. Then Rufus had arrived with his recording, and Lucy had arrived with her paperwork from Ethan, and they’d been busy rounding up all of the Rittenhouse players.

Denise was claiming that Jess had been assigned to work undercover and that Rufus was working on turning Mason under Denise’s orders. Lucy was pretty sure that the rest of the police force was going to let it slide only because they’d taken care of so much corruption that the entire state—not to mention Capitol Hill—was reeling.

It was all finished. All getting cleaned up. They’d done it, they’d won.

So why did it feel so hollow?

None of it was going to matter unless Flynn came home. She had done this not just because it was the right thing, but because of him. Because she loved him. And damn it, if he didn’t—

The front door opened and Flynn stepped through, wet from the rain, his dark hair plastered to his face.

Lucy froze.

Flynn carefully closed the door behind him. She could still see the bruising and cut from where he’d been smashed over the head. He’d nearly died, before Jess had saved him. If Jess had been only a minute later…

Behind her, she heard Wyatt get to his feet. Lucy couldn’t tear her eyes from Flynn.

She couldn’t name the expression on his face, but it made her breath catch, made her sway on the spot.

Flynn strode forward, took her face in his hands, and pulled her up to him, kissing her.

Lucy felt herself melting and didn’t stop it, let herself fall into him, her hands wrapping around his wrists, her eyes falling shut. He was kissing her like autumn leaves, like fresh tilled earth, like honey and rosemary bread. She dared to press up into him a bit more, and Flynn yielded.

The thought sprang into her mind, _check, you have to check_, and she pulled back.

Flynn looked wrecked, just from that kiss, and her heart threw itself against her ribcage in response.

“Garcia.” His hands were still on her face, her fingers were still wrapped around the firm bones of his wrists, feeling the delicate inner skin, the soft furred hair.

Flynn stared at her, almost like he expected her to turn him away. As if she could ever possibly do that.

Forget it. She had said what she needed to say, and he’d said what he needed to say, and Wyatt had told her what he and Flynn had talked about when he’d met Flynn at the park. They could do more talking later—they probably should—but right now, now, _now_, it had been two years and too much time.

Lucy kissed him, and this time, she parted her lips, sliding her tongue along his, nipping a little. Flynn opened for her at once and she pulled him into her, releasing his wrists to slide her hands up into his hair. Water slid down her arms and dripped onto the floor but she couldn’t care less. His tongue was firm and his mouth was warm and that was all that mattered to her.

All at once a kind of wild desperation seized her and she yanked at his clothes, at his hair, at his shoulders, wanting him so badly she burned with it. Flynn made a noise and pulled away, obligingly taking off his coat. He looked up, past her, over her head, and before Lucy could turn to follow his gaze she felt Wyatt press up against her, saw Flynn take Wyatt’s chin in his hands and kiss him.

Part of her wouldn’t have minded it if they’d done it right there on the floor, but none of them were in their twenties anymore and their backs would thank them for making use of the large, comfortable bed just a few short feet away. Lucy watched with hungry eyes as Flynn kissed Wyatt, getting rid of his clothes, making Wyatt whimper and cling. They stumbled along, shedding clothes like Flynn’s hair was shedding water, until Lucy pushed Flynn onto the bed and promptly covered his body with her own.

“Lucy.” Her name was like a sin and a benediction in his mouth, and she knew what he was asking.

“This.” Wyatt’s arm wrapped around her waist and his fingers slid down between her. Lucy arched, and Flynn’s mouth found her breasts, and she was so slick she could feel Wyatt fumbling, making her laugh breathlessly.

It had been… well, a while, not worth counting, honestly, so she pressed her palm down into the middle of Flynn’s chest and took her time, sinking lower and lower until all of the breath was crammed up in her throat and she was staring vaguely into nothing. Flynn’s groan was swallowed by Wyatt kissing him, and Lucy watched them for a moment, adjusting to the feeling of being stretched, filled, enjoying as the two men took each other apart piece by piece.

She pulled Wyatt into her when they broke for breath, enabling him to rut against them from the side. She wanted all three of them connected, wanted skin on skin on skin, feeling like the storm raging outside was also somehow inside of her, her veins lightning, her heart thunder, her fingertips rain.

And then it all stopped, just for a moment, as her hand slid down and she realized where her palm had been, just to the right of the center of Flynn's chest, in between his heart and his sternum.

Lucy stared at the gnarled, raised pink skin, a much smaller scar than she had imagined when he'd been lying in that hospital bed, when it had felt like the doctors had created a gaping maw in the center of him. It made her shiver to brush her fingertips over it, a spot she'd known Flynn had but hadn't seen since she and Wyatt had stopped helping him change his bandages, and to feel not fear at remembrance, but joy. Knowing that this was, yes, a mark of what he'd endured, but also a sign that he'd _survived_. They hadn't taken him from her, from Wyatt, from anyone. Flynn had fought back, and held on, and healed.

She lowered herself down, needing a bit of assistance to keep her balance, and pressed her lips to the scar. Felt the difference between the smooth, unmarred skin and the raised reminder, tasted it with her tongue, gave silent thanks. _He'd made it_.

Her eyes rose just enough to meet Flynn's in the dark, to see him staring at her, and she was a writer, but she had no words for the expression on his face, or for what she was feeling in that moment. So she didn't try. She just kissed the scar once more, softer, sweeter this time, and then rose up again, rolling her hips, restarting the storm.

Flynn had a hand on her hip helping her, another buried in Wyatt’s hair, and somehow the three of them found a rhythm. Her nails raked down Flynn’s chest and across Wyatt’s shoulder as she tipped her head back, riding deep and hard but not fast, not tonight, this was real and she wanted to savor it, pushing herself until she found that angle that made her cry out.

Wyatt bit down on Flynn’s shoulder, his hips shoving and thrusting mindlessly in the crook between Lucy’s thigh and Flynn’s side, and Lucy felt the hot splash across their skin as Wyatt whined and came. Flynn was saying things—soothing, going by his tone, but in Croatian, words she couldn’t understand—but they sounded so good rolling off his tongue and she wanted to catch them with her own.

She bent down and kissed him, shifting the angle, and Flynn moaned into her mouth. He planted his feet up on the bed and began to thrust into her—Lucy jolted, gasped, fuck, _yes, _there—

Wyatt managed to prop himself up a little and his fingers found her again, his lips at the curve of her throat, and Flynn was still kissing her, his hands roaming all over her, and she came.

Flynn shuddered and thrust up, shaking, his hands spasming, and Lucy relished the feeling of his nails digging into her skin as he followed her.

It was still raining heavily outside. Lucy rolled off eventually, grabbing supplies to clean them all up, and Flynn kicked off the sheet they’d gotten dirty, pulling the clean covers up and over them.

“I got your message,” he whispered. For once, he was in the middle, Wyatt on his other side, and Lucy didn’t blame Wyatt in the slightest. They’d nearly lost Flynn too many times, they deserved to cuddle him.

“I read your letter,” Lucy replied.

Flynn propped himself up. “I threw those in the trash.”

Wyatt made a noise that tried to be a cough but was something much guiltier.

Lucy kissed Flynn before he could protest. “It was beautiful. All of it.”

“I think you’re mistaken about who’s beautiful around here.”

“You’re right,” Wyatt said around a yawn. “I’m gorgeous.”

Flynn pinched him, and Wyatt yelped in surprise. Lucy stifled her laughter against Flynn’s chest.

His hand was carding through her hair, and she was properly awake for it. Wyatt’s hand was resting over hers. She was so in love her teeth ached with it.

“I love you.” She didn’t have to specify that it was to both of them.

Wyatt’s fingers squeezed hers, and Flynn pressed a kiss to her hair.

Lucy had won an Edgar and an Agatha in the same year, and two James Fenimore Coopers, but nothing—nothing in the world—had ever tasted more like victory, no reward had ever been sweeter.

She fell asleep to the sound of the rain pounding on the windowsill in counterpoint to Flynn’s heartbeat in her ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moje lijepe djevojke = my beautiful girls
> 
> The episodes used for this chapter are Recoil (5x13), Veritas (6x22), and Always (4x23)


	15. Chapter 15

Lucy woke up first, which was a rarity.

Usually Flynn was the first one up, being the only actual morning person—a flaw for which Lucy had generously chosen to forgive him—and so typically she woke up to the smell of coffee and would follow the scent out into the living room where Flynn would be out in his pajamas, ready to indulge her tendency to wrap her arms around him from behind and rest her forehead in the middle of his back.

But this morning, she woke up with her eyes springing open like steel traps, weak sunlight barely peeking through the bottom of the curtains. The idea was thrumming in her mind, loud and clear, a vision in her head like a scene from a movie, and she knew she had to write it down before it vanished.

She gently worked her way out from underneath Flynn’s arm, crawling over Wyatt to get off the bed and grab her bathrobe. It was cold this early in the morning, since they rarely had the heat on while they slept. Between the three of them, there was always enough warmth.

Booting up her laptop, Lucy settled onto the couch. She’d been wondering what to do for the third book in the series featuring her time-traveling rogue and one bent-out-of-shape reluctant accomplice (although not so reluctant as of the end of book two) and now, she had it.

Time slid away as she typed, the world unspooling before her in her mind like thread, turning into crystal clear words on the page. It wasn’t always like this. Most days she had to work hard to get the words out. She’d had to train herself into being able to do this regularly, instead of just sitting around waiting for inspiration to come. But when it did come like this… it was worth all the other trouble.

It wasn’t until she heard the creak of a floorboard that she realized how much time must’ve passed. Lucy finished up a sentence and paused, tilting her head back.

Flynn crossed the last few feet to her and bent over, kissing her forehead. “How long have you been up?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked amused, sliding his fingers through her hair. He’d been up late last night, doing paperwork for a case, but Lucy was glad to see there were no bags under his eyes. Finally, he seemed to be getting regular, good sleep most nights. The ghosts were gone from him, the weight was lifted from his shoulders. He could breathe, and Lucy was grateful every time she looked at him, looked at Wyatt, and saw that they were no longer burdened, no longer haunted. In the months following Cahill's arrest she had seen Flynn laugh easier, smile more, and seem to really enjoy existing in a way that he hadn't before. She wondered, sometimes, if he even knew how much mental weight he'd shed—but then he'd see him staring at her or Wyatt, or both of them, with this odd, grateful light in his eyes and this awestruck smile on his face and she'd think, oh, yes, he knew.

“I’m going to make coffee.” He kissed her again, this time on the nose, and then straightened up, heading for the kitchen.

Lucy went back to typing, letting the sounds of the coffee maker and Flynn’s movements become background noise, soothing in their own way. Eventually Flynn went back into the bedroom and emerged a few moments later with Wyatt trailing behind him.

“Morning, puppy,” Lucy called softly.

Wyatt walked over and flopped on top of her legs, big blue eyes peering up at her, practically begging. Lucy carded her fingers through his hair and Wyatt sighed, relaxing, his eyes sliding shut.

“We have to be at work in a short bit,” Flynn reminded Wyatt from the kitchen.

“Five more minutes,” Wyatt mumbled.

Lucy smiled, looking back over what she’d written. Yes, she liked this. And her editor would like it too, she was sure of it.

“Are you going to shower?” she asked Flynn, who was now—mmm, delicious—frying bacon.

“No, I figured I’d just do it after work, otherwise I’m going to have to take one again anyway. Might as well wait.”

“Mmm?” Wyatt hummed inquiringly.

“Rufus’s retirement party, sweetheart.” Lucy massaged the spot behind his ear with her thumb and Wyatt practically melted.

“That makes it sound like he’s some old man,” Wyatt mumbled. “Retirement. He’s goin’ MIT.”

“I know.” Rufus had been alternating between panic and elation for the last two weeks, one time apparently waking Mason up at two in the morning to talk about it. Lucy was excited for him, mostly—although she would miss him. But it was time, it was what he wanted. He was built for more than just this precinct.

She glanced over at Flynn, who had his back to them as he busied himself with breakfast. Rufus wasn’t the only one who’d had a chance to leave. After all of Flynn’s work, taking down Keynes and then Cahill, a certain government agency had asked if he wanted to join up with them. Lucy’s heart had been in her throat for a week while Flynn had given it all his due consideration, but the relief she’d felt when he’d turned it down had been so great she’d felt like she might pass out.

“Of course I’m staying here,” Flynn had said, sounding bewildered. “I got into this job because I want to bring justice to victims. Even before Lorena and Iris, that was why I did this. If I was with the FBI… I don’t know that I’d be doing that anymore. It gets so much more complicated. And I just want to bring answers to families. Face to face, person to person. That’s what I want. That’s who I am.”

Lucy suspected that Flynn wouldn’t want to be in the police forever. It wasn’t the kind of job you could do forever, surrounded by all that death. It was exhausting, in multiple ways. But for now—it was good. It was what he believed in. And she loved him for it.

Her phone buzzed. It was Amy.

_Tell Rufus that if he even thinks about proposing to Jiya at the party tonight I will cut him I know Jess has been planning on proposing and if Rufus proposes before Jess does I owe Jiya a hundred bucks and I refuse to lose this._

Lucy smiled and typed out a reply. _Tell Rufus yourself. Also why are you making bets on getting proposed to isn't that kind of mercenary?  
_

Amy replied, _what's the harm in making a little money off of how romantic you are? I seem to recall someone has written a million-dollar series using her boyfriends as the main characters._

_I was not dating them when I started that series and I did not write the series just to date them. That's different._

Amy sent her a string of emojis followed by, _you keep telling yourself that._

“What’s that smile for?” Flynn asked, walking over with a large plate he’d used to hold the food.

Lucy set her laptop aside and shifted, pushing herself up so that Flynn could slide in behind her, settling her back against his chest. Lucy put the plate on her lap, causing Wyatt to inhale deeply and shuffle forward, stealing a piece of bacon.

“Amy will apparently lose a bet with Jiya if Rufus proposes before Jess does,” Lucy explained. Flynn’s arm wrapped around her to pick up a piece of toast. “I refused to get involved.”

“He’s not proposing tonight,” Flynn said with confidence. “He thinks it would be unfair to propose right before he leaves for three months.”

“Nobody said there was a problem with a long engagement.”

“But right before he leaves? I think he’s waiting for summer.”

“In that case,” Wyatt said around a mouthful of cantaloupe, “Jess is gonna win, she’s proposing in December. Gonna use those holiday lights to her advantage.”

“Amy would like a big fancy proposal,” Lucy admitted. “Unlike the rest of us.”

Flynn made a considering noise, tucking his nose behind Lucy’s ear, his free hand joining her in petting through Wyatt’s hair. “Does that mean you want something private?”

Lucy tried not to let it be obvious that her pulse had jumped. She turned her head, painfully aware of how Wyatt had gone very still beneath her hand, against her legs. Flynn’s eyes were very green in this morning light, and very soft. “You know I don’t need that,” she whispered.

They had talked, the morning after they’d fallen into bed together, fallen into each other in that way they’d been craving for months. It had been a long, quiet talk in bed, with coffee, going over what they needed, what they wanted, what all this meant.

No state, no matter how liberal, was far enough along to allow multiple marriages—certain fundamentalist religious organizations aside.

“I know,” Flynn conceded. “Legally, we need to… set things up. And it won’t ever be like—I know that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want us to have… something. There’s legally, and then there’s spiritually, and I want… I want something that makes us… promise. I want to be able to make promises to you both.”

Lucy felt Wyatt lifting the plate up and off her lap, heard him set it on the coffee table, as she twisted and curled in Flynn’s arms, her hand cupping his cheek, pressing their foreheads together. Wyatt sat up, or scooted up, at least, until he could bury his face in Flynn’s neck.

“I know it’s only been a couple months,” Flynn mumbled, embarrassed.

“Hey, I’ve been in love with you for six years, you dumbass,” Wyatt grumbled. “If you’d asked me to marry you the first night we’d had sex I would’ve said yes.”

“Whenever you want to get to it,” Lucy said. “No rush. But something private, yes. I’m not into… everyone else seeing our moments. I’m not into spectacle.”

Unlike Amy, who was probably going to get a confetti canon at the Rockefeller Center ice rink on Christmas Eve and would be absolutely delighted by every second of it.

Flynn nodded. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

Their phones were probably going to ring any moment now with a case. She had the rest of her writing to get done. There were her friends—her family—to talk to, paperwork to take care of, and they probably needed to get groceries again.

But for right now, there was this. Just breathing and being held.

Sometimes, Lucy thought about Carol, about her mom and what she would’ve thought of Lucy’s choices, her life that she was leading. She wasn’t in a fancy penthouse, and she was living with two men, fully intending to spend the rest of her life with them (rings on their fingers or no). She was working as a police consultant. Amy was fully planning on marrying a woman.

She hoped that Carol would come to understand, given the chance. She hoped that the woman who had turned away from a man like Benjamin Cahill and decided to choose and love a man like Henry Wallace would have found an understanding about her daughters’ life choices. She liked to think that perhaps, somewhere, Mom was happy for her.

But it didn’t really matter. It didn’t matter who her Mom had been, or her choices, or what Lucy’s life had been like with her, so much as what Lucy did with it now. There was only the present and the choices she had in front of her today. And whether Mom would’ve liked it or not—Lucy liked it. Lucy was happy.

“…I love you both but I want more bacon,” Wyatt mumbled, trying to duck underneath Flynn’s arm to get at the plate. Flynn reeled him back in, kissing him obnoxiously, both to make Wyatt melt and to annoy Wyatt by keeping him from the food.

Wyatt glared at him as they pulled apart—or tried to glare—the glazed look in his eyes kind of took the bite out of his expression.

Lucy laughed, kissed him, and passed him the plate. Then she kissed Flynn, and that kiss lasted a good deal longer, because she knew—no matter how calm he was about it—that thinking about a step like that, thinking about _marriage_, meant a lot to him after Lorena and Iris (he could be a father again, he wanted to be a father again, could they talk about that, too, now that she was beyond the ghost of her mother).

“I love you,” Flynn murmured, the corner of his mouth ticking upward, like a secret smile, and Lucy kissed him a second time.

Just for good measure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so, that was a lot. When I first started writing this fic I thought it would be about 50k. I actually started writing it because I was putting off writing my Ballroom AU since I thought said Ballroom AU would be a lot tougher to write. And then this turned out to be the most involved, complex, lengthy fic I’ve ever written. Go figure.
> 
> Castle was the first fandom I ever wrote for, and the first fandom I was really truly involved in (rather than just lurking in) so it’s sort of full circle that I’m ending my Timeless fics, the last fandom I’m heavily involved in, with a Castle AU.
> 
> A lot of blood and sweat went into this fic. Thank you all for your support. Just because this is my last big fic doesn’t mean I’m not open to prompts so if you have a Timeless prompt (or any prompt) you want to send me, drop me an ask @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels on tumblr.


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